Page 10 - Offshore Electrical Engineering Manual

Preface to Second Edition

Many things have changed in the oil and gas industry since the first edition was pub-
lished in 1992, four years after the Piper Alpha disaster.
Chief among these were the changes in the UK statutory legislation following
on from Piper Alpha. Regrettably, I was too busy at the time to carry out the neces-
sary revisions to this book, but now have the opportunity as I approach retirement to
rectify that omission.
The change of name to ‘Manual’ reflects the intention to avoid covering theo-
retical material covered well in university courses, but to concentrate on the prac-
ticalities and precautions necessary to create an electrical design which has all the
attributes expected of it in today’s world, i.e., safe to use and maintain, robust in
harsh conditions, reliable, efficient and environmentally sound.
I hope readers will appreciate the following significant content changes, which
reflect the new offshore regulations, or have become necessary because of the mod-
ern information technology. These are as follows:

1. The addition of material related to the UK Offshore Safety Case and PFEER
Regulations,
2. The addition of a section on offshore wind farms and their (offshore) substations,
3. The use of weblink references where possible,
4. Because of the constant revisions to standards, dates of standards are no longer
quoted unless unavoidable,
5. At the time of writing, the IEE Recommendations for the Electrical and
Electronic Equipment of Mobile and Fixed Offshore Installations, which has
served us well over the years, is about to be superseded by a UK harmonised
version of BS EN 61892, and this is reflected in the new text.

I look forward with interest as to what ‘BREXIT’ and the other global political up-
heavals create, but I am hopeful that the drive towards global harmonisation of stan-
dards will continue.

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