The Hydrocarbon Release Database (HCRD) contains data on loss of containment events in the UK sector of the North Sea. The data shows a decrease in the annual number of releases. A study was carried out to determine whether statistically significant trends are apparent when categorizing releases by severity and specific cause. It was investigated whether the relative contribution of some causes as compared to all releases, had changed over time.

The main conclusion is that over the analysed period (1993–2014), the relative contribution of “Procedures” as a cause for release has decreased with statistical significance. “Design” improvements seem to lead to a reduction in releases too. Finally, “Equipment” was improving at the slowest rate, if at all, until 2005. Since then, it appears to improve as well. These findings are robust, at least for the total set of data, and the releases of Significant severity. For releases of Major severity, the number of incidents is too small to justify any conclusion on trends.

The conclusions suggest that over the analysed period improvements in offshore safety have been mainly driven by improvements in management, covering elements like procedures, competence and compliance.

碳氢化合物释放数据库（HCRD）包含有关北海英国地区围堵事件损失的数据。数据显示年度发行量有所减少。进行了一项研究，以确定在按严重程度和特定原因对排放进行分类时，统计上显着的趋势是否明显。调查了某些原因与所有版本相比的相对贡献是否随时间变化。

主要结论是，在所分析的时期（1993-2014年）中，“程序”作为释放原因的相对贡献有所下降，具有统计意义。“设计”方面的改进似乎也导致发行量的减少。最终，直到2005年，“设备”的增长都是最慢的，如果有的话。从那时起，它似乎也在增长。这些发现是可靠的，至少对于全部数据集和严重程度的释放而言都是如此。对于严重性严重的事件，事件的数量太少，无法就趋势得出任何结论。

结论表明，在所分析的时期内，海上安全的改善主要是由管理方面的改善所推动的，涵盖了程序，能力和合规性等要素。