About
Reflekt
Reflekt AS was started in October 2017 by Graeme Dick and Mike Pollard. The focus for the company is how learning from major accidents can be used to prevent new major accidents and to improve performance in an organization. Investigations of major accidents are extensive and provide a unique insight into the organizations involved. The understanding of technical, operational, and organizational factors that have contributed to major accidents is an important prerequisite for being able to learn. Understanding these factors is also important to be able to recognize them in minor incidents. Recognition of these factors may indicate that processes and practices are not functioning satisfactorily, and that the organization is vulnerable to a serious incident and possibly to a major accident.
Reflekt assists organizations with learning and experience transfer through investigations, incident reviews, seminars, lunch and learn, facilitation of risk workshops and other forums. Reflekt publishes a weekly ‘Reflection’ with our reflections on events and accidents that have a learning potential.
Reflekt has also developed methods for assessing how vulnerable an organization is to a major accident and a process for developing measures to make the organization less vulnerable.
When it comes to culture and human action, Reflekt is concerned with how practical experience can be combined with a theoretical approach to arrive at appropriate measures that can make an organization better. Reflekt encourages the people we work with to think differently about their business and change the way they do things to make continuous improvements.
Graeme Dick
Mye first experience with major accidents was in 1977 when I applied for a stipend from a major oil company before starting at university. Part of the application was to review and report on the Flixborough disaster in June 1974 that killed 28 people. I didn’t get the stipend, but my interest was awakened. After completing my Chemical Engineering degree, I started working for BP on the Forties field with several other graduates. One of them was on board Forties Delta when there was a well blowout and fire in 1983. I worked at Sullom Voe and was on site when a compressor discharge line ruptured, and a gas cloud engulfed the process area. Luckily, there was no ignition, but it made me think how lucky we were. I moved to Norway with BP in 1985 and was visiting friends in Aberdeen on the 6th July 1988. I watched the news reels of the fires on Piper Alpha in disbelief. One of the tasks I was assigned when I returned to Norway was a Major Accident prevention review on the Ula platform and the Gyda platform design. I left BP in 2003 but returned as a consultant in 2006. One of the focus areas for BP at that time was the follow up of the Texas City refinery disaster in March 2005. Following the Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 some colleagues and I started talking about starting to work together on major accident prevention. It was in this process the name ‘Reflekt’ was born. It wasn’t until October 2017 that we decided the time was right for us to start a company and focus on learning from major accidents. Our main ambition is to make a difference and I hope that this book will contribute to this.
Mike Pollard
My oilfield career started in 1975 after an Environmental Science degree, when I arrived in Saudi Arabia, working within drilling, both offshore and onshore. Near misses that could have developed into major accidents played a part in my introduction to the industry. Carrying sacks of cement being mixed and pumped to stop gas breakout at the seabed around the tender rig I was working on has left its mark on me. Working in the Middle East, Holland, UK and Norway as drilling engineer, drilling supervisor and drilling manager made me realise that luck often plays a part in the prevention of incidents escalating and threatening lives. We are, however, not always lucky, as Piper Alpha, Alexander Kielland and Macondo testify. We can reduce the role that luck has in major accident prevention. When, as drilling manager, I had a fatality on my rig, the realisation of the part I played in the chain of event became painfully clear. Each of us has a role in preventing these accidents, where family and friends of people killed do not have the benefit of being able to forget. A group of colleagues got together to discuss what we could do to ‘make a difference’ as far as major accident prevention is concerned. ‘Reflekt’ was the result. Our experience is within oil and gas, but many industries suffer with similar challenges regarding major accident prevention, and this book both pulls on experiences from, and can benefit other industries. Good luck!
Team
Mike Pollard
– Stavanger –
mike@reflekt.as
+47 950 500 40
Alan Holmes
– Aberdeen –
alan@reflekt.as
+44 1330 860 444