Hydrogen Sulfide Drilling Contingency Plan^{1, 2}

William G. Mills,³ Mitchell J. Malone,³ and Karen Graber³

OVERVIEW

This document guides personnel aboard the JOIDES Resolution in recognizing, preparing, and mitigating potentially dangerous hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) situations during drilling operations.

Not all situations can be foreseen on board the JOIDES Resolution, nor can detailed instructions be provided for every situation that might be encountered. The policies and guidelines set forth in this document should be considered as a minimum set of requirements for preparing and dealing with H₂S exposure.

In addition, these policies and guidelines can be used with other heavier-than-air toxic gases, provided that the proper gas detector systems have been installed and calibrated for the specific gas.

This document supersedes and replaces the two previous Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) H₂S safety documents, Technical Note 16 (Howard and Reudelhuber, 1991) and Technical Note 19 (Foss and Julson, 1993). This Technical Note is intended to supplement existing ODP and ship operator safety documents.

This document includes information about the following:

• Identifying, classifying, and responding to different levels of H₂S hazard;
• Preparing to core H₂S-bearing formations;
• Processing H₂S-bearing cores;
• Setting up the fixed H₂S detection system;
• H₂S safety training, drills, and record keeping;
• Responsibilities and duties of personnel in regard to the policies set forth in this document;
• Technical information about H₂S and other gas hazards; and
• Copies of waiver forms.

An electronic copy of this manual will be kept on the ODP Web site policy page. An annually updated hard copy of this manual will be kept in the offices of both the ODP Operations Manager and the ship's Offshore Installation Manager.

Both electronic and hard copies will be available to all personnel aboard the JOIDES Resolution.

¹Mills, W.G., Malone, M.J., and Graber, K., 2006. Hydrogen sulfide drilling contingency plan. ODP Tech. Note, 33 [Online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/tnotes/tn33/INDEX.HTM>. [Cited YYYY-MM-DD]

²See Disclaimer.

³Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, Texas A&M University, 1000 Discovery Drive, College Station TX 77845-9547, USA. Correspondence author: mills@iodp.tamu.edu