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One of the recent developments in the offshore petroleum industry is that floating production facilities and subsea production systems are taking over more and more from surface installed facilities. Subsea production systems also implicitly make use of floating installations, typically mobile drillings units.

In the following sections most attention is given to objects dropped from cranes, while the other hazards are dealt with in less detail.

Risk based design has been the focus of attention for several years. It appears to be viewed almost as some people would view religion, you are either for or against. Those who favour this concept are mainly representatives of the oil companies. The contractors appear to be either for or against according to how their contract has been formulated, which is quite understandable. Sometimes the authorities appear to be against this approach, at least when it is implemented in practice. Legislation, on the other hand, makes quite extensive references to this approach.

One of the requirements for presentation of risk results is that a complete overview of the risk picture shall be given, together with a detailed insight into conditions and vulnerabilities. These are relatively vague requirements, and it is probably not clear to most practitioners what is implied. This chapter attempts to fill that gap, and tries to illustrate how the risk picture on an installation may be presented.

Quantitative risk analysis was for a long time used mainly for the design phase and for extensive modifications. If the analysis was carried out in the operations phase, it was conducted in a way corresponding to use in the design phase, without reflecting the vast differences between design and operation from a HES (or strictly speaking major hazard risk) management point of view. In the last ten years, the use of QRA has increased in the operations phase. It is starting to be conducted in different ways, in order to reflect the differences that are important from a management point of view. Several aspects in this connection are discussed in this chapter.