OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2000/131

1 HSEH ealth & SafetyExecutiveBird guano accumulationsand their effect on offshorehelicopter operationsPrepared by BOMEL Ltd/John Burt Associates Ltd on behalf of BOMEL Consortiumfor the Health and Safety ExecutiveOFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY REPORT2000/131 HSEH ealth & SafetyExecutiveBird guano accumulationsand their effect on offshorehelicopter operationsBOMEL LtdLedger HouseForest Green RoadFifield, Maidenhead Berkshire SL6 2 NRUnited KingdomHSE BOOKSii Crown copyright 2001 Applications for reproduction should be made in writing to:Copyright Unit, Her Majesty s Stationery Office,St Clements House, 2-16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1 BQFirst published 2001 ISBN 0 7176 2037 9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmittedin any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the priorwritten permission of the copyright REPORT is made available by the Health and SafetyExecutive as part of a series of reports of work which hasbeen supported by funds provided by the the Executive.

2 Nor the contractors concernedassume any liability for the reports nor do theynecessarily reflect the views or policy of the USED AND LESSONS LEARNT FROM UK FIXED WING USED AND LESSONS LEARNT BY THE OFFSHORE INDUSTRY TO SYSTEMS AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS55 PART 3 - MITIGATING ON MAINTENANCE AND ON PERSONNEL HEALTH AND POTENTIAL HAZARDS FOR HELIDECK ON helicopter FLIGHT OPERATIONS POTENTIAL HAZARDS TO helicopter FLIGHT RESPONSIBILITY - THE OFFSHORE AND AVIATION REGULATORY POSITION35 PART 2 - THE EFFECTS AND CONSEQUENCES FOR PATTERN AND POSSIBLE REASONS FOR THE GUANO EXTENT OF THE TO THE GUANO PROBLEM3 PART 1 - GUANO ACCUMULATION ON SUMMARYPage NoiiiCONTENTS CONTINUED106 APPENDIX G - BRISTOW HELICOPTERS WEEKLY REPORT - NUIHELIDECK CONDITION100 APPENDIX F - TOTAL OIL MARINE WATER SPRAY SYSTEM -PHOTOGRAPHS92 APPENDIX E - SEA BIRD SPECIES AROUND UKCS88 APPENDIX D - SEA BIRD ORDERS85 APPENDIX C - UKCS HELIDECK GUANO PROBLEMS - CAA MORANALYSIS81 APPENDIX B - ILLUSTRATIONS OF GUANO ACCUMULATION ANDITS EFFECTS - CAA REPORT79 APPENDIX A - LIST OF OF ABBREVIATIONS78 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND AND AND CLOSING USED AND LESSONS TO BE LEARNT FROM OTHER INDUSTRIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR OFFSHOREPage NoivHEALTH AND SAFETY EXECUTIVEOFFSHORE DIVISIONBIRD GUANO ACCUMULATIONS AND THEIR EFFECT ON OFFSHORE helicopter OPERATIONSEXECUTIVE SUMMARYThis REPORT has been prepared with the help of contributions from several people and companiesworking in the OFFSHORE Industry (see Appendix A).

3 In taking this approach to the subject, a balanced REPORT has been prepared that meets theobjective for obtaining a better appreciation of current bird / guano accumulation problemsencountered on UKCS installations; in particular their effects on safety and health aspects ofoffshore helicopter , the long-standing problem with birds / guano on OFFSHORE installations has not altered toany extent. This comes as no surprise because it is well known that the forces of nature arealways present and defeating them entirely is often beyond the wit of man. A more pragmaticapproach for duty holder and regulator alike is to simply accept the irresistible forces of natureare at work when an installation is selected and colonised by sea birds. Once this happens theproblem has to be properly managed by the duty holder and helicopter operators to minimisethe effects of the birds on both platform and helicopter operations.

4 Introducing an industry ledhelideck condition monitoring system and focusing on simple solutions for more efficient guanoclean-up are considered to have the greatest potential for gaining real benefits and achievingsome cost bird strikes and interference are always going to be a potential hazard in the offshoreoperating environment. However, evidence suggests that this is a UKCS-wide problem andhelicopter operations to normally unattended installations, where sea birds are known tocongregate, are no more affected or hazardous than is apparent that duty holders and helicopter operators are managing the problem in differentways, but levels of success and enthusiasm are ways to move forward to make further gains in the quest to reduce operational, safetyand health hazards. Suggested efficiencies for minimising the effects of birds and their guanoaccumulations on NUI s, are identified in the body of the REPORT and in the , all sides of the UKCS OFFSHORE industry are encouraged to work more closelytogether and to facilitate open dialogue and information exchange to assist all duty holders whoencounter a bird / guano problem on their and frequent reporting of helideck condition is fundamental to efficiently managing theguano accumulation and obscured marking and lighting problems.

5 Industry co-operation shouldinclude development of a routine UKCS NUI helideck condition reporting, assessment,recording and publishing system in conjunction with procedures fully owned, sponsored andmanaged by UKOOA / assist with helideck condition reporting frequency all pilots could be requested to look athelidecks other than the ones they are flying management approach if used as an early warning system , offers a good way forhelicopter operators and installation duty holders to jointly discharge their duties of care towardensuring that NUI helidecks remain compliant in respect of the ANO and OFFSHORE procedures could be incorporated into the UKOOA Guidelines for helicopter Operations toNormally Unattended individual exclusion device has been able to provide the whole solution. It requires acombination of systems to sustain a reasonable degree of freedom from the birds in the mediumterm.

6 This is currently being demonstrated with the Gull Scat / water spray combination onTotal Oil Marine s and disposal of guano and bird debris from a fouled helideck remains a major task formost NUI duty holders, when they have helidecks that are heavily fouled. It is very unpleasantfor the personnel involved, exposes them to potential health hazards, it is time consuming anddisruptive to routine maintenance operations and is costly. There is much merit in focusingmore attention on finding practical and cost effective solutions to these problems. Solutions thatalso reduce the frequency of repairing helideck surfaces and markings and replacing helidecknets would be an added starting point toward finding a practical solution to disposal and cleaning problems may befound in the tarpaulin system currently used, with some success, by ARCO. Arco currentlyemploy a system that achieves bulk guano removal and reduces helideck cleaning effort toquite an extent.

7 It is recommended that industry consider this system as an option thatdeserves further This study REPORT was commissioned by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), OFFSHORE Division (OD ). OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY REPORT - OTO 98 088, titled HSE / CAA Inspection ProjectOffshore Helidecks 1991-1995 issued in March 1998 (Reference 1), highlightedconcerns over the long-standing problems of sea birds roosting on NormallyUnattended Installations (NUI s). The main problem with these sea birds is their habitof leaving guano accumulations, which build up to a point where helideck markingsbecome obscured. This can contribute towards a pilot making a wrong deck landing(Reference 3) and in extreme cases aborting a landing. Equally important is the otherdebris they leave behind (potential FOD, see Section 6 for abbreviations), along withthe general health risks for personnel exposed to guano and increased bird strikepotential for helicopters operating in the local given in the OTO REPORT suggest that about 30% of helidecks on NUI s have aconsistent problem with guano accumulation.

8 This figure was given as recent in thereport and followed the formation in March 1997 of a Joint Industry Working Group(convened by HSE) to look at the size of the problem posed by colonising seabirds,the range of attendant problems they create and to look for possible solutions. Thisreport continues HSE's aim to facilitate the search for guano problem on NUI helidecks is well illustrated in the photographs reproducedfrom the OTO REPORT , in Appendix s primary objective is to obtain a better appreciation of current bird guanoaccumulation problems that are encountered on UKCS installations (manned andunmanned) and their effects on the safety and health aspects of OFFSHORE the findings of this study, a secondary objective is to identify those areas wherefurther productive work could be done to find ways to improve the current situationthrough minimising the effects of guano ease of reference, the study is broken down into three parts that must beaddressed in order to meet the primary and secondary objectives.

9 The topics coveredare: Guano accumulation on installations The effects and consequences for OFFSHORE operations Mitigating 1 - GUANO ACCUMULATION ON TO THE GUANO PROBLEMS ince the advent of UKCS oil and gas exploration and production operations, visitingseabirds and other bird species have become part of the natural environment in their habits (breeding, feeding and migration) a variety of different birdshave been observed on OFFSHORE platforms at various times throughout the is the various species of sea birds that appear to dominate in the helideck guanoaccumulation problem. Manned installations are also affected to some extent butthese tend to be isolated instances and limited in their effect. Normally UnattendedInstallations (NUI s) are, by far, the most affected. The habitual colonisation, by seabirds, of unmanned installations around the UKCS, particularly during the summer andautumn periods, has given rise to concern over many years for the owners of many ofthe 90 or so NUI s located around the UKCS.

10 See Figure for NUI distributionaround the has been highlighted in the HSE / CAA Helideck Inspection Project REPORT (Reference 1) and other literature, helideck markings become severely obscured,there are general health risks for personnel exposed to guano and there is always thepotential for aircraft bird strikes. This REPORT will seek to put these problems into perspective from an EXTENT OF THE OBTAINED FROM INTERROGATING THE CAA SDDMANDATORY OCCURRENCE REPORTING (MOR) DATABASE CAA SDD were formally requested to interrogate their MOR Database using a varietyof search parameters such as: Guano accumulation on helidecks. Obscured helideck markings. Cancelled or aborted sorties due to the above problems. Bird strikes or near misses around OFFSHORE - NUI Distribution 4 The MOR search yielded just 26 relevant MOR s. It is significant that only 4 of thesereports actually relate to problems caused by guano accumulations on of the 4 reports are included in Appendix that MOR record keeping started on 1 January 1976 this is a very lownumber of reports, given that 2,472,129 flight hours and 5,518,748 sectors have beenflown by UKCS OFFSHORE helicopters during the period 1973 to analysis of the 4 MOR s shows that 3 were reported during operations in theUKCS Southern Sector.