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The oil and gas industry has a major accident potential. This high-risk, high reliability sector relies on human cognition with advanced human-machine interfaces and remote, distributed teams conducting complex, high risk tasks. Since the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th, 2010 there has been a surge in interest in human factors and non-technical skills as a way of improving safety and performance in the oil and gas industry.

A key non-technical skill for maintain safety and performance in drilling is Situation Awareness (SA). SA is essentially knowing what is going on around you and using that to anticipate how the situation might develop. Evidence from investigations into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, along with other high-profile drilling incidents (e.g. Montara and Petrobras P-36), highlighted the role that inaccurate SA played in these incidents.

This led to our research looking at drillers’ SA as a means of supporting safe and efficient operations, as sponsored by Maersk Drilling.

If you would like to discuss this research further please contact Dr Ruby Roberts.

Situation awareness task

Research paper detailing development of a prototype monitoring task simulating drilling scenarios, Drillers’ Situation Awareness Task.
Paper

Cognitive task analysis

Research paper using cognitive task analysis methods to identify the expert SA skills required for the complex task of kick detection.
Paper

Incident analysis

Research paper analysing the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disaster using the Driller Situation Awareness Model.
Paper
  • Dr Amy Irwin

  • Dr Nejc Sedlar

  • Dr Heather Branigan

  • Dr Janine Cooper

  • Linda Engles

  • Prof Rhona Flin

  • Dr Susan Griffiths

  • Dr Helen Knight

  • Dr Peidong Mei

  • Helen Silver-MacMahon

  • Dr Ilinca Ruxandra Tone

  • Apoorva Amirapu

  • Beatrix Duff

  • Sofia Johansson

  • University of Aberdeen
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The Applied Psychology and Human Factors Group | The University of Aberdeen