This document establishes the principles, specifies the requirements and provides guidance for the development and implementation of an escape, evacuation and rescue (EER) plan as it applies to offshore installation design, construction, transportation, installation, operation service life inspection/repair, decommissioning and removal, related to activities of petroleum and natural gas industries in arctic and cold regions. Reference to arctic and cold regions in this document is deemed to include both the Arctic and other locations characterized by low ambient temperatures and the presence or possibility of sea ice, icebergs, icing conditions, persistent snow cover and/or permafrost. The objective of this document is to ensure that the offshore EER plan and provisions in arctic and cold marine regions provide an appropriate level of reliability with respect to personnel safety, environmental protection and asset value to the owner, to the industry and to society in general.

This document contains requirements for the design, operation, maintenance, and service-life inspection or repair of new installations and structures, and to modification of existing installations for operation in the Arctic offshore and other offshore cold region environments where ice can be present for at least a portion of the year. This includes offshore exploration, production and accommodation units utilized for such activities. To a limited extent, this document also addresses the vessels that support emergency response (ER), if part of the overall EER plan.

While this document does not apply specifically to mobile offshore drilling units (MODU – see ISO 19905-1), many of the EER provisions contained herein are applicable to the assessment of such units in situations when the MODU is operated in arctic and cold regions.

The EER provisions are largely performance-based stipulations, in which verifiable attributes or benchmarks that provide qualitative levels or quantitative measures of performance are to be achieved. The key characteristic of a performance-based standard is that it is focused on what needs to be achieved rather than on how it should be done. One of the performance targets is that use of the EER system incurs no casualties in the process. The performance target is developed in the context of a design health, safety and environment (HSE) case.

The provisions of this document are intended to be used by stakeholders including designers, operators and owners.

This document does not apply to mechanical, process and electrical equipment or any specialized process equipment associated with offshore arctic and cold region operations, except in so far as it impacts the performance of the EER system to sustain safely the actions imposed by the installation, housing and operation of such equipment when the EER system is being used. This includes periodic training and drills, EER system maintenance and precautionary down-manning as well as emergency situations.

ER associated with onshore arctic oil and gas facilities is not addressed in this document, except where relevant to an offshore development.