Seasonal Strategies for Evacuation From Offshore Structures in the Beaufort Sea

This paper discusses the results from an integrated research project, carried out over many years, which examined a variety of evacuation strategies for offshore structures in the Beaufort Sea. The objective of the project was to address the safety of offshore personnel working in Canada’s Arctic environment, by examining the issues surrounding emergency evacuation from an offshore structure under the diverse range of conditions in the Beaufort Sea. This was accomplished through: the development of decision flow-charts for the establishment of on-ice evacuation shelters and their associated costs and logistics; field measurements of personnel movement rates across different ice morphologies; an investigation into ice rubble stability and roughness and its influence on evacuation systems; an examination of ice management options when ice rubble is present around an offshore structure; and the presentation of generic means of evacuation and their adequacy for four “seasons” of evacuation: open water, moving pack ice, quasi-stable rubble and stable rubble/landfast ice. The project results provide 1) information related to the viability of systems for a range of realistic ice conditions, especially those involving ice rubble, 2) provide input into the development of the evacuation and rescue options and strategies for Beaufort Sea structures and 3) be used by Operators and Regulators to examine the feasibility of proposed evacuation systems for the Beaufort Sea.