Can Technology Improve Health and Safety in the Oil and Gas Industry?
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Health and safety is an aspect of the oil and gas industry that includes all players, such as the government, companies, associations, workers, and so on. In the UK this aspect of the industry is of paramount importance, and it is believed that the new digital transformation which is sweeping through the industry can help the sector improve health and safety even further.
Offshore workers are constantly exposed to many health and safety risks; therefore, it must be a priority to prevent major accidents that could result in serious injuries or indeed fatalities. It seems this has been successful over recent years, with the sector's three-year rolling average, non-fatal injury rate reducing and remaining lower than other sectors such as transport, construction, and manufacturing.
““The industry’s work to improve safety performance is delivering.””
Technology now plays an important role in improving health and safety in the oil and gas industry. Industry players and employees around the world believe through smart sensors, wearables, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), the oil and gas sector could improve the safety of its workers even further. Technology has already shown how useful it can be to the sector by boosting workers safety in remote locations, alerting them to potential exposure to toxic gases, monitoring their vitals in harsh environments offshore, and feeding them real-time data during critical decisions.
In many other industries the digital transformation causes some concern however it seems that is not the case in the oil and gas sector. Overall the reception to digitalisation is very warm, with 77% of workers seeing digitalisation as a positive development for the oil and gas industry.
““Oil and gas companies are leaning on technology to make existing roles - and the people in them - more effective.”
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