Wellsite accidents can be attributed to various causes such as overpressure conditions. A wellknown international insurance company addresses the daunting subject of ‘planning for an oil and gas well control emergency’ this way: “Operators within the oil and gas industry typically manage numerous operational risks. Failure to adequately manage exposures, such as the threat of oil spills, the challenge of finding qualified contractors and the need to protect new workers on the job, could drastically affect an operator’s production goals and bottom line. Though the severity of risk can differ among these exposures, no other threat has the potential to challenge an organisation more than a well control event.” 1 This article explores the idea of creating an independent protection layer at the wellhead with a case study illustrating how a large petroleum company in South America adopted a new approach to pump overpressure protection in remote oilfields. Read Article