Dr Greg Roach from the University of South Australia’s Centre for Sleep Research said the study assessed and monitored the performance of a sleep-deprived group and another group with a blood alcohol content of between 0.05 and 0.08.

“When asked to do simple tasks, we found the performance in both groups fell,” he said.

“We also found the performance between both the drunk and fatigued groups over the same period of time to be very similar.”

Roach said that a separate study found employees were at their peak performance after having eight to nine hours sleep a day.

But managing fatigue, especially in shift work situations, must be shared between both manager and employee, he said.

“It’s up to the manager to ensure that employees are given adequate opportunities to sleep between shifts,” he said.

“But also it’s up to the employee to make sure they’re using their hours away from work to get sufficient hours of sleep.”

Roach said it was important petroleum companies introduce fatigue risk management plans into their workplaces to avoid accidents and costly law suits.

“In the last five years, in New South Wales and Victoria, fatigue has been identified in occupational health and safety as a workplace hazard.”

“Companies should treat the management of fatigue like any other workplace hazard.”

The Centre for Sleep Research is an internationally-recognised research group and is considered a world leader in the field of sleep research.

It works closely with industry groups to investigate the effects of shiftwork and other working conditions on sleep to develop new standards and practices in fatigue management.