DRAFT INTRODUCTION TO DISSERTATION
Research Questions
The oil and gas industry faces many criticisms when it comes to health and safety of its employees. This is due to the numerous activities within the industry that include chemical use for various processes (1990). These include: drilling, cementing, completion, stimulation, and production (1990). The occupational hazards of exposure to these agents have received little attention, as well as the types of health and safety strategies that firms implement. Thus, this study will identify descriptively the occupational safety and health issues in the oil and gas industry and the policies that companies use.
The study will try to answer the following questions:
1. What are the health and safety issues in the oil and gas industry?
2. What are the health and safety policies that oil and gas companies implement?
3. What are the challenges that oil and gas companies face in the prevention of hazards and accidents?
4. What can be recommended to improve the health and safety practices in the oil and gas industry?
There are various health and safety issues in the oil and gas sector. The Health and Safety Executive even fail to specify every safety and health concerns because of the diversity of the industry. In the HSE website, there are guidance on minor issues such as personnel transfer basket, interaction between utility systems connection, and many others (HSE, 2006); and major issues such as moving helidecks, examination of passenger lifts, examination of offshore cranes, safety installations of unearthed electrical distribution systems, and many others (HSE, 2006). Even though such issues are mentioned and discussed, there are many other safety and health issues that were not thoroughly discussed in the website. This study will try to verify the list of safety and health issues in the oil and gas sector by interviewing managers and staffs of HSE and the Department of Trade and Industry, Oil and Gas sector.
Companies are the ones that experience health and safety problems and the ones that implement health and safety measures. The HSE and the DTI only provide the guides. Thus, by exploring the safety and health measures of oil and gas companies, and the issues they usually experience, a descriptive framework of their experiences can be documented and analyzed – basically to determine if such issues are being given importance by the HSE and the DTI.
Research Goals
This study will try to achieve the following research goals:
1. To be able to acquire as many publications about safety and health issues and measures in the oil and gas industry, not just in UK, but also in other countries.
2. To interview and survey head and staffs of HSE and DTI oil and gas industry.
3. To study the data collected from literatures and the respondents and look for relationships that are important in the study’s issue.
Research Plan and Methodology
The first month will be dedicated on the knowing more about the problem of the research. This will be followed an in-depth literature search on the internet and local libraries. Literature search will continue for as long as four months. The three among those four months will also be dedicated in knowing more about the research design and methods chosen for the study. The following months will be dedicated in data collection. A letter of permission to conduct research will be submitted to HSE and DTI. Several oil and gas companies in the UK will also be chosen for interviews and surveys. Data analysis will soon follow. The data will be analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Quantitative testing is for the data collected from oil and gas companies, basically to find out the statistical prevalence of health and safety issues, and the prevalence of measures they apply.
Multi-method is the chosen means of conducting this research so that data collection can be flexible and the topic will be better explained and elaborated.
Overview of the Dissertation
The dissertation will have 5 chapters. The first chapter will introduce the problems of the study, aims and objectives, as well as the methodology used. Then, the second chapter will deal with providing the details about the basic variables of the study. Here, the oil and gas industry in the UK will be explored. The rules and regulations on safety and health in the oil and gas sector will also be discussed as well as the different issues and measures that oil and gas companies face and apply. The third chapter will present the data collected from the HSE and the DTI. Each data will be followed by discussions guided by references from related literatures. Then, the fourth chapter will present and discuss the data collected from the selected oil and gas companies in the UK. This will include the presentation of qualitative and quantitative data acquired, and discussions on each of them. Finally, chapter 5 will present the conclusion of the study, as well as the recommendations.
Expected Results
The study expects to find several barriers in implementing health and safety measures in oil and gas companies, such as employee participation, and lack of specific safety and health issue descriptions. The study also expects to find many companies failing to meet the guidelines and procedures recommended by HSE and DTI.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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