Process Safety and Environmental Protection 121 (2019) 290–298 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Process Safety and Environmental Protection journa l h om epage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psep Using content analysis through simulation-based training for offshore drilling operations: Implications for process safety Syed Ali Mehdi Naqvi a , Muhammad Raza a,∗ , Vincent T. Ybarra b , Saeed Salehi a , Catalin Teodoriu a a Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, University of Oklahoma, USA b College of Arts and Science, Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma, USA a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 16 August 2018 Received in revised form 21 October 2018 Accepted 22 October 2018 Available online 15 November 2018 Keywords: Simulation-based training Process safety Content analysis Human factors Offshore drilling a b s t r a c t Human factors play a large role in the creation and optimization of process safety in offshore drilling and well control operations by assessing and mitigating human error. The current industry practice relies on the simulation-based trainings for its drilling crews which lack the measurement and evaluation of human factors and non-technical skills. One way to improve training is to measure and evaluate an individual’s performance and non-technical skills, but there are no such validated, psychological tools made for offshore drilling operation. A way to create these tools is with the use of the content analysis and process tracing techniques, which are frequently used in research to identify psychological processes via communication. This paper presents the potential use of content analysis as a tool to optimize simulation- based trainings that can be applied to improve human factors in drilling and well control activities. To put this to test, an interactive trip-in experiment was specially designed in the University of Oklahoma virtual reality drilling simulator that allowed four participants as assistant drillers (two Novices and two Experts) to individually engage in four similar simulations and communicate with a driller in a manner similar to a real-world setting. The results from content analysis were translated into semantic maps to explore individual psychological states which informs their cognitive processes (e.g. working memory, long-term memory, metacognition) used during the experiment. The research found significant differences in the problem-solving techniques for the Novices and the Experts meaning, that perhaps they approached the problem psychologically differently. Results are a proof of concept that content analysis is an additional tool that may allow for improved performance evaluation and human factors optimization through simulation-based trainings. © 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The world’s energy demands are increasing rapidly and offshore oil and gas production has been a concentration area to meet that energy gap. The offshore energy extraction processes can pose risk to the personnel, assets and environment. Environment assessment and the risk prediction through statistical quantitative methods have been a focus point in oil and gas operations (He et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2011; Abimbola et al., 2014; Rathnayaka et al., 2013). An analysis of marine and offshore accidents reveal that human errors are responsible for more than 70% of the accidents while ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ali.mehdi@ou.edu (S.A.M. Naqvi), raza@ou.edu (M. Raza), vincent.ybarra@ou.edu (V.T. Ybarra), salehi@ou.edu (S. Salehi), cteodoriu@ou.edu (C. Teodoriu). the technical failures contribute to less than 30% (Cai et al., 2013). A recent example of this is the Deepwater Horizon explosion on the Macondo well, which resulted in the death of 11 people, and causing the largest oil spill in the US history (Graham et al., 2011). The reasons for the blowout was multifaceted in that it took a spe- cific combination of mechanical and human error to occur (Graham et al., 2011). An analysis of the human errors in the Macondo well blowout identified about 25 errors within these categories, which culminated to allow the incident to occur (Smith et al., 2013). For instance, “The ability of the BOP to act as this barrier was con- tingent upon human detection of the kick and timely activation of the BOP” (U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2016). British Petroleum detailed the mechanical failures in a 2010 report diagnosing faulty drill integrity and the cascade of conse- quences due to human decision making. This was confirmed by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2016) which stated that https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2018.10.016 0957-5820/© 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.