E-Books: Simultaneous Operations SIMOPS Training Material

Any industry works with concurrent or simultaneous operations. The hazards associated with the simultaneous operations or SIMOPS as they call increase as the companies or contractors working on them do not have the same goals, operational or health, and safety procedures.

Table of Contents

Simultaneous operations are usually defined as independent operations in which the personnel, assets, execution, and incidents in any operation may impact the safety of personnel, equipment, and environment of another operation.

Before SIMOPS start, the company is required to analyze the potential risks by conducting two or more critical operations at the same time. SIMOPS was most common in the oil and gas industry, but also other industries are now realizing that SIMOPS is a part of their operations and dedicate more and more attention to simultaneous and concurrent operations.

Participants on the SIMOPS training course will become versatile in:

Identifying most common simultaneous operations in refineries
Understanding the principles of SIMOPS
Dealing with health and safety-related issues in oil refineries
Effective communication necessary for making SIMOS efficient and safe
Identification of risk mitigation measures in case of SIMOPS activities
Preparing the SIMOPS plan
Creating the SIMOPS matrix
Conducting a Job Hazard Analysis and organizing the operation handover

What are the goals?

By the end of this training course, participants will learn to:

Apply techniques to effectively handle the simultaneous operations (SIMOPS)
Ability to analyze both concurrent/simultaneous operations in plant operation.
Recognize and catalog hazards and risks involved in SIMOPS.
Recognize the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved.
Prepare the SIMOPS plan and SIMOPS matrix.
Use the SIMOPS checklist and conduct a SIMOPS toolbox talk.

SIMOPS process

Obviously, on any site, there will be many different tasks to be done, often at the same time. The distinction here relates to major work events, such as having two different wellheads in close proximity. They could be at any stage of production, one might be abandoned, and one might be being freshly spudded.

To a lesser degree, some might refer to any important events on the same rig as SIMOPS, even if there is only one wellbore. A rig crew needs to focus on each job at hand, be that deploying the drill string, casing, or cement. Any other major task in the background that might counteract, distract, or impact in any way could be described as a SIMOP situation. An expert in this area will see the bigger picture, with data points from both operations. From a higher viewpoint, risk and performance can be properly assessed and contingencies can be prepared.

A SIMOP describes two or more wellbore operations that are close enough to interfere with each other, and transfer risk or performance implications.

This is an HSE and well integrity concept that’s mostly used in the well completion stage of the drilling process. Both well bores might be drilled concurrently, but it’s more likely that one has been in production for a period of time.

Here are some examples of SIMOP situations:

A well is being hydraulically fractured, and the reservoir is shared with other nearby leases that are being conventionally drilled. (Or vice versa).
On an offshore rig, a drilling, slackline, and coiled tubing unit might be working at the same time.
On a multi-platform land rig, separate wells will affect the reservoir pressure and hydrocarbon flow.
A crane lift positioned close to another work area.

The considerations for a SIMOPS expert to factor in are numerous, and there will be those that might not immediately come to mind. For a safe and efficient well operation, there are many things to consider, when there are simultaneous operations, this number multiplies.

Someone planning or overseeing a SIMOP will consider the more obvious things such as: