What This Course Is, and Why Offshore Is Different

An offshore installation is a workplace and a home at the same time. It may be a fixed platform, a jack-up, a semi-submersible, a drillship or a floating production, storage and offloading unit (FPSO). In every case it is a small steel island with the sea on all sides. You work there, eat there and sleep there, often for two weeks or more, a few metres from oil and gas under pressure.

This course prepares you for that. It is for people who will go offshore for the first time, or who return after a long break: new crew, service company hands, vendors and visitors. It explains what you will meet, from check-in at the heliport to the day you go home, and what is expected of you at each step.

What follows from this

Because of these four points, the rules offshore are stricter than most rules on land, and they apply to everybody. Items you carry every day at home, such as a lighter or a mobile phone, are controlled. You will be given a place to go in an emergency, and the installation will count you. You are expected to know the alarms within hours of arriving.

The rules, alarm signals and equipment differ from one installation and one country to another. This course teaches the common pattern. The induction on your own installation tells you the exact rules there, and those rules always come first.