On September 2, CAVU International’s David Ehrmann will present at the DrillSafe Conference in Brisbane, Australia, sharing lessons from the Banyu Urip drilling operation.

His presentation, “Back to the Future: Transformational Steps in Operational Leadership, Human Performance, and Crew Resource Management,” will explore how frontline teams moved from a more reactive approach to one focused on recognizing and managing threats before they affected the operation.

The Banyu Urip drilling campaign presented a complex, high-tempo operating environment. Human Factors including fatigue, stress, task overload, distraction, complacency, communication barriers and organizational culture all had the potential to influence performance.

The objective was not simply to become better at responding when something went wrong. It was to help teams identify the conditions that could shape performance and manage those conditions proactively.

Over 14 months and across two rigs, CAVU worked alongside frontline teams through continuous, field-based coaching. Crew Resource Management principles including leadership, communication, teamwork, situational awareness, decision-making and Human Performance were integrated with plan-based execution and After Action Reviews.

Before a job, teams identified threats, established controls and aligned around the plan. During the job, they maintained situational awareness, communicated changing conditions and reinforced the expectation that people speak up when something did not look right. After the job, teams reviewed what was planned, what actually happened, what they learned and what they could do differently during the next operation.

In this way, learning became part of everyday work rather than something reserved for incidents and investigations.

The results were significant.

Across 701 operational days, the operation achieved 94% near-perfect operational days and more than 2.2 million workforce hours without an HSSE or process safety incident. First oil was delivered 12 months ahead of plan, full production was achieved 10 months early, and one rig was recognized as the safest in the contractor’s 48-rig fleet.

The case study reinforces an important lesson: proactive safety and operational performance are not competing priorities. The same leadership behaviors can drive both.

David will use the Banyu Urip story to highlight several broader lessons for HSE leaders and operational teams: manage Human Factors proactively, make learning part of normal work, give frontline teams a meaningful voice, turn tools into everyday behaviors, and recognize that stronger safety performance and stronger operational performance can develop together.

David has spent the past 14 years working on offshore and onshore oil and gas facilities and in heavy manufacturing across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Australia. He designs and delivers training and coaching programs that apply Human Performance, leadership development and Crew Resource Management principles across high-risk, high-reliability industries worldwide and has been published by both IADC and SPE.

His own oilfield career began in 2012 as a safety leadership and performance coach working offshore on a Rowan jackup in East Java, Indonesia.

Event details:
📅 September 2
⏰ David Ehrmann presents at 1:25 PM
📍 VOCO Brisbane City Centre

We look forward to David sharing the Banyu Urip story with the DrillSafe community in Brisbane.

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