Technology Focus: Health, Safety, and Environment (August 2026)

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Our industry invests significant effort in preventing accidents. Despite continuous improvements in safety performance, however, incidents still occur. This illustrates that prevention alone is not sufficient to manage risk effectively. We must also be prepared to respond effectively when incidents do occur.

Crisis and continuity management is fundamentally about preparedness. Its purpose is to ensure that an organization clearly understands what actions to take during an incident rather than having to define roles and processes under pressure. Effective crisis management begins with understanding risks, developing robust emergency-response plans, and building response capability through workforce training and exercises. When an incident occurs, the workforce should be fully prepared, equipped, and empowered to act.

Business continuity is a critical component of crisis management. Organizations need to be able to sustain essential operations while protecting people, assets, and value. Depending on the scenario, this may include maintaining supply-chain, workforce, workplace, compliance, and digital continuity, managing stakeholder relationships, conducting crisis communications, and addressing reputational impacts. This capability is often described as organizational resilience: the ability not only to withstand disruption but also to adapt and recover quickly.

Recent industry developments demonstrate significant progress in crisis and continuity management. Organizations increasingly plan for extreme-weather events, integrate emergency response into risk-management frameworks, and adopt bowtie methodologies that incorporate emergency-response elements. At the same time, advances in digital technologies—such as geographic-information-system based visualization, real-time personnel tracking (used appropriately), weather overlays, artificial-intelligence-driven predictive modeling, and adaptive simulation—are strengthening preparedness, improving decision-making, and reducing response and mobilization times.

Modern multiuser, scenario-based simulators enhance training and exercises by enabling objective assessment of response effectiveness. In parallel, care-for-people programs are becoming more widespread, providing timely and compassionate support to employees and families affected by incidents.

Crisis and continuity management supports mitigation barriers for major accident risks. Maintaining this capability—and strengthening it—therefore is core to protecting our people, safeguarding value, and sustaining global confidence in the energy industry.

Summarized Papers in This August 2026 Issue

SPE 229379 - Emergency-Response System Enhances Safety in Ultrasour Offshore Environments by Diego Espin Tobar, ADNOC

SPE 232736 - Scenario-Based Virtual Plant Training Assures Emergency-Response Competence by Jerry Ashok Jacob, SPE, and Mahir Al Wahaibi, PDO

SPE 229328 - AI, Digital Tools Can Operationalize Readiness for Crisis and Emergency Management by Ashish Chandrashekhar Kulkarni and Ashwina Das Kulkarni, The Bell Group

Recommended Additional Reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org.

SPE 230927 - Barrier-Based Environmental Risk Management of Accidents Leading to Major Oil Spills by Adriana Suarez, KAK-Lamor, et al.

SPE 228069 - Infrastructure Resiliency and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: An Integrative Approach To Mitigating the Impact of Disasters by Hitesh Mohan, Cyberworx Energy, et al.

SPE 229243 - Care Link for Supporting Families by F.O. Al Mehairbi, ADNOC, et al.