Offshore facilities

Offshore facilities which use water for personnel showering or washing, often have problems with Legionella. There have been instances of Legionnaire’s disease and subsequent deaths on several platforms. In many ways the risks are similar to hotels – however as platforms and vessels have evolved for different uses dead-legs and rarely used features have often developed. This can be compounded by variable incoming water quality which introduces Legionella or its protozoan hosts into the supply tanks. Unlike a hotel, these tanks must sit ‘stagnant’ and holding sufficient water for several days between supply boat visits in case of poor weather.

Unmanned platforms are occasionally visited for maintenance, and parts of platforms are shut down for various reasons creating dead legs and Legionella breeding grounds. When reopened or visited these platforms or parts of platforms will have high risks of infection.

We offer a range of kits, including bio-film kits which enable operators to identify problems straight away, on site and with no expert input. Without even sending a sample to the lab, which is not always easy from an offshore facility and never cheap.

Lab tests, as part of risk control regimes take 10-14 days to return a result even if you can get the sample to the lab within the designated time period. This is no good for risk management and even worse if you are trying to get a system back into use after treatment. All offshore operators are aware of the costs of down-manning. Early detection and intervention is essential. The Hydrosense Legionella field test (HLFT) provides a result in 25 minutes. Such a fast result can save lives, prevent disease and limit down time after an incident, saving money.

Getting a water sample to a lab has two specific drawbacks from an offshore platform. The first is that it costs a lot of money to ship or helicopter a sample to shore. The second is that samples can change during transit. Even a small delay in shipping a sample can affect the result. The HLFT is done on site immediately, no shipping and provides a result immediately.

The HLFT uses antigen rather than colony forming units. It targets Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1, which causes 90% of all Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks. The test detects antigen on live and dead bacteria giving a better assessment of overall risk as well as immediate risk. It also provides an indicator of recovery after corrective actions. Live bacteria don’t always grow on culture plates, in fact they are in their most virulent form as they search for a new host. In this virulent phase they do not replicate making them difficult to detect by culture methods. They replicate when they are safe within a bio-film host – also protected from routine water sampling.