Safety First
Safety is one of the fundamental criteria of CPC’s operations. All stages of the oil movement and tanker loading process, as well as support processes, are well tried and tested. Uninterrupted operation of the CPC pipeline is supported by highly qualified personnel and the most advanced control systems.
CPC can guarantee its shippers to move their crude oil in a reliable effective environmentally-safe manner.
The system incorporates all Russian and Kazakhstan legal requirements. Its structure allows to deploy the most advanced international developments in HSE.
In 2010 the CPC Health & Safety System that covers all types of operational activities in Kazakhstan and Russia was certified for compliance with BS OHSAS 18001:2007.
A year earlier, in 2009, CPC had successfully completed a certification audit of its environmental management system for compliance with the ISO 140001:2004 international environmental standard and received a corresponding certificate.
One of the key elements of the integrated safety system is making sure CPC and its contractor personnel are always ready for emergency response activities.
A multi-tier response system for response to potential accidents and emergencies on CPC sites includes non-organic CPC emergency & response teams, vehicles, equipment and emergency response contractor personnel, resources and equipment available from territorial subsystems of the Russian Emergency Prevention and Response System and regional emergency & rescue teams.
SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition system)
The entire CPC pipeline operation is monitored from the Main Control Centre (MCC) at the Marine Terminal. Two dispatchers can do that effectively thanks to the Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition System (SCADA) which operates all the facilities of the CPC oil pipeline system from Tengiz to the SPMs at the Marine Terminal in Yuzhnaya Ozereevka, manages tanker loading and provides safety monitoring for the entire CPC system.
Redundant fiber optic, satellite and radio and data transmission channels provide communications between the Marine Terminal and all pipeline facilities and the CPC Regional Offices. If any parameter goes beyond setpoint limits, an alarm sounds and the alarm source section is inspected to identify the cause of the alarm.
Leak Detection System
Details about LDS
Offshore Safety
The CPC Marine Terminal uses a number of systems that improve the safety of offshore operations and the efficiency of emergency response.
Hydro/Meteo Monitoring System (HMMS)
HMMS allows to monitor hydrometeorological parameters in the operations area in real time:
- wind direction, velocity and gusts;
- atmospheric pressure;
- sea wave parameters;
- current direction and velocity on the surface and at specific depths;
- air and water temperature.
The data is displayed on a console in MCC. The system allows to archive the data for further processing, systematization and statistics.
CPC Marine Terminal Single Point Moorings (SPM) Tanker Mooring System
Loading tankers using SPMs is the most reliable and high tech tools currently used in 39 ports around the globe. The SPMs use positioning systems that allow to monitor tanker position to a centimeter and also its dynamic characteristics, such as:
- course;
- speed;
- angular speed;
- movement direction and speed of vessel extremities (stern and bow).
Tanker movement is tracked in real mode on an electronic navigation map. A mooring master continuously monitors a tanker approaching an SPM, the distance to the SPM, the direction and the speed the vessel is nearing the single point mooring at and also its angular velocity. All these elements are shown on the pilot’s computer screen as vectors and numbers overlaid over the electronic navigation map.
This way oil loading from single point moorings ensures a higher level of safety than fixed piers: a moored tanker turns around an SPM like a wind vane when driven by the wind and the current, rather than pushing into the SPM, which allows loading operations to be performed in more severe weather conditions and also simplifies and reduces the time taken by mooring operations.
Automatic Identification System (AIS)
Key system functions:
- automatic ship identification;
- ship tracking by onshore services;
- navigational data exchange among ships and between the ships and the MT shore services (transmitting ship and cargo details, route, destination port and arrival time);
- showing the relative positioning of the ships on an MCC control panel.
The AIS system is interfaced with HMMS and the Mooring System.
AIS shows ship course, speed, coordinate and position data to display the current status of ship movements within the operational responsibility area of the CPC Marine Terminal.
Potential Incident Simulation, Control and Evaluation System (PISCES II)
PISCES II is designed to prevent, monitor and forecast emergencies associated with an oil spill as well as to help the Operations Command Centre and the Emergency Situations Commission in response management decision-making.
In the event of an emergency the system automatically tracks the movement trajectory of an oil slick in the sea and actions of resources and equipment deployed on electronic navigation maps. The system allows to maintain a database of site resources and equipment, local weather conditions, risk zones and environmental zones and also to play out events from scenarios and exercises.
The system allows to use mathematical models created on the basis of studies conducted by the State Institute of Oceanography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and to forecast an oil slick's movement directions.
PISCES II coupled with HMMS, the mooring system and AIS combines all these elements into a single marine operations safety system.
Emergency Response Stations
Details about the Emergency Response Stations
Fire Safety
The special nature of its operations makes CPC place a lot of focus on fire safety. CPC has organic fire fighting crews in place at all of its facilities, equipped with modern fire trucks and foam firefighting equipment. All facilities have triple foam agent stocks. CPC’s key fire hazard facilities are equipped with an automatic fire alarm and firefighting systems. The tank farms and the pump stations are equipped with low-expansion foam fire suppression systems using film forming foam agents.
When commissioned, CPC supplied 59 fire trucks (at a cost of about USD 3 mln) to regional fire fighting units of the State Fire Service located along the CPC pipeline route. The fire trucks are based on Ural and Kamaz cross-country trucks.
Drills
CPC conducts at least 9 large-scale oil spill response and fire drills involving contractors and local units operating under the Russian Emergency Prevention and Response System. There are monthly scheduled training classes for CPC and Contractor personnel to review response issues related to various abnormal situations. In addition to material and equipment support, a special focus is made during the drills on improving CPC and contractor personnel skills at all levels.