Developing offshore competency standards

Eric Jas, Atteris Pty Ltd, and Chris Harvey, Chris Harvey Consulting Pty Ltd, discuss the development of competency standards for offshore pipeline engineers.

In 2010, The Australian Pipeline Industry Association Ltd (APIA) published its Pipeline Engineer Competency Standards, which set out the definitions of competency across the breadth of pipeline engineering roles. These competency standards were focused on onshore pipelines, leaving a place marker for offshore pipeline engineering. Since then, there has been increasing interest and involvement in APIA by the offshore industry. A group of key offshore participants banded together in 2012 to identify the competencies needed for offshore pipeline engineering and to draft them into a set of competency standards for offshore pipeline engineers. The programme has since progressed well and is 40% complete, with planned completion towards the end of 2014.

Developing an offshore pipeline engineer training programme through APIA will assist in providing the necessary tools to pipeline operators, pipeline engineering consultants and pipeline installation contractors to assess, screen and develop their engineering professionals in the broadest sense.

The offshore pipeline engineer training programme will serve the same objectives as those for the onshore pipeline engineers:

• Accelerating the rate at which engineers develop expertise
• Providing a clear career path for engineers
• Providing a new emphasis on the value and importance of pipeline engineers
• Providing a vehicle to assist communication about pipeline engineering, and raise its profile
• Help engineers see themselves differently; i.e. recognise their importance to business and society
• Place engineers in a position to better manage their professional liabilities through high standards of competence and expertise
• Increase the recognition by society that pipelines are safe and reliable means of transporting hydrocarbon products.

The development of the Offshore Pipeline Engineering Competencies has followed the same outline used for the Onshore Pipeline Engineering Competencies. A small steering group of experienced pipeline engineers from a range of different backgrounds and employers have teamed up with the APIA representatives Chris Harvey (from Chris Harvey Consulting), and Eric Jas and Allison Selman (from offshore pipeline engineering consultant Atteris Pty Ltd) to work on the development of the Offshore Pipeline Engineering Competencies. Dr Andrew Palmer (Keppel Chair Professor at the University of Singapore) and Dr Roger King (Corrosion Services, Manchester, UK), have offered their expertise to assist in reviewing the competencies.

Battery limits

The following battery limits have been agreed:

• Onshore: At the tie-in weld with the onshore pipeline, which is typically above the high water mark, where the sandy beach meets dune vegetation or in the case of a coastal cliff, inland from the cliff face in respect of the pipeline vertical alignment profile (for conventional open cut and cover shore crossing design). In the case of a HDD or tunnel, the onshore battery limit is at the onshore tie-in weld near the HDD/tunnel onshore extremity.
• Offshore: At fixed platforms, up to and including the pig launcher/receiver. At floating facilities, up to the riser hang-off point. At manifolds/trees, up to the manifold/tree.
• All rigid pipe (carbon steel, duplex steel, alloys) and all flexible pipe. Bends, mechanical connectors (flanges and the like), inline TEEs. Fixed (rigid) and flexible risers, including steel catenary risers (SCRs) and jumpers. Tie-in spools, umbilicals and power cables.
• Exclusions: Onshore pipelines. Platforms and floating facilities. Subsea pipeline end manifolds (PLEMs), subsea trees, subsea manifolds/skids and subsea valves (categorised as subsea engineering).

Competency areas

The development covers the following main competency areas of offshore pipeline engineering:

• General engineering
• Industry background
• Flow assurance/process engineering
• Corrosion control and materials engineering
• Safety management and risk assessment
• Commercial aspects
• Environment and heritage
• Pipeline corridor management
• Design of offshore pipelines
• Design of pipeline related structures
• Shore approach design
• Design of risers (rigid, flexible, SCRs) and tie-in spools
• Seabed data acquisition 
• Metocean data definition
• Construction engineering and management
• Offshore pipeline project management
• Welding
• Hydrotest, comissioning and preperation for operation
• Asset integrity management and pipeline operations
• Safety case

Over 200 competencies have been identified. They are being classified into a competency structure consisting of three dimensions: level – core, elective, specialist; stream – general, design, construction, operations (including maintenance and decommissioning); and core competency area.

The plan is to have the competencies reviewed by a wider industry group, including operators, consultants, contractors and regulators, to gather valuable feedback. The offshore competency standards are designed to be a flexible and effective tool for employers of pipeline engineers, pipeline engineers themselves, training organisations and APIA itself.

There are multiple applications for the competency standards including:

• Determining if a pipeline engineer is competent for a particular role of activity
• Improving clarity of job descriptions
• Competency gas analysis – at industry, company, department and individual level
• Recognition of current skills and knowledge
• Recruitment
• Creating pipeline engineer development plans
• Development of pipeline engineer training programmes
• Personal career planning

The competency standards will be available to all APIA members. Whilst they will be applicable to the Australian offshore regulatory and physical conditions, they will also be compatible to be used into the global market.

Offshore/onshore interface

To continue to operate at a high standard, APIA wants to formalise the competency requirements in a system that can be used nationally in both onshore as well as offshore pipeline industries. The industry also finds it important to close the gap between onshore and offshore, in particular where both industries sometimes meet, which is at the shoreline. The project of writing and reviewing the competencies is progressing well, and will ultimately require involvement from a much wider industry audience, including contractors, consultants, operators and regulators. The objective from APIA’s perspective is the continued safety and longevity of the nation’s vital gas transmission infrastructure networks onshore as well as offshore.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/11032014/developing_offshore_competency_standards/