Managing Rig Brake Systems
Posted by proforma on March 30, 2010 | No Comments
In this instance, an oilfield driller didn’t know the correct valve position for water supplied to the auxiliary hydromatic brake. Unfortunately, the valve wasn’t labeled to indicate open or close positions, either. So after accidentally shutting off the water supply to the auxiliary hydromatic brake, he found the drawworks brakes were overheating; the blocks and the elevators struck the rotary table, bending the joint of pipe in the elevators.
Tags:accident, offshore GOM, oilfield worker, Workplace Safety
Filed Under: Workplace Safety
Two incidents reported in January involved sea swell action on offshore platforms. In one instance, as the crane operator lowered a crane block to the deck, a large swell hit the vessel. The swinging block collided with an empty product reel, an AC unit and the walkway of another crane. 
Here’s a situation where alarm bells should have sounded at the first sniff. Operations personnel at an offshore Gulf of Mexico location occasionally smelled a gas/condensate odor in the motor control center (MCC) building but did not investigate the source of the odor. Subsequently a fire occurred inside one of the air conditioner evaporator enclosures located on top of the building. Minerals Management Service (MMS) investigated and found that gas had migrated through the AC evaporator enclosure’s drain line and accumulated inside the AC evaporator. Read MMS’s recommendations 
A roustabout had his arm broken when a drill collar struck him from behind. See this 
While tripping to the bottom with the drill string, the drilling crew met with an obstruction and came to a stop, which triggered the drawworks drum to spool off excess drill line. When the drum brakes were applied and the spool off stopped, the crew decided to spool the line back onto the drum.
On a drilling rig, a casing crew was rigging up as welders worked on the pollution pan. Suddenly the pan dropped, falling 50 feet and killing one welder. A tragic combination of mistakes contributed to this fatality. A synopsis is available on the 
This worker was plugging together two cords with Twist-To-Lock plug and socket connectors when an electrical short and arc flash occurred. The employee’s PPE shirt was unbuttoned and not tucked in; the outcome was second-degree burns to his abdomen. While 
