Creating a more effective offshore oil and gas safety culture was on many people's minds as the fourth anniversary of the Macondo deepwater well disaster came and went on Apr. 20. One growing question involves the best ways to report near-misses.
"If we really want safety, we have to do more," Brian Salerno, who directs the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said in an Apr. 16 commentary. "We have to foster a culture of safety among all personnel involved in offshore operations so that it becomes part of the way business is conducted."
The Safety and Environmental Management Systems that BSEE requires are one key. "We recently completed the first round of SEMS audits and found that the audit information was limited," Salerno said. "This is because there were few insights into how effectively an individual company used its SEMS process to identify and correct problems."
SEMS II built some improvements into the process, such as a requirement for outside auditors, but Salerno said more needs to be done.
"For one thing, we need to address the reluctance to be forthcoming with information due to fears about liabilities, or perhaps worries that it might invite increased scrutiny by BSEE," he said. "We will be searching for options to increase the amount of information that is shared with the bureau and the rest of industry."
The main purpose
Everyone agrees top management must be committed to the idea. Charlie Williams, who directs the industry-funded Center for Offshore Safety in Houston, suggested that operating employees may be in the best position to manage prevention and mitigation barriers.
"The subset is preventing personal injuries," he told reporters Apr. 15 at the American Petroleum Institute's Washington headquarters. "But the main purpose is to recognize a condition which can lead to an incident and relieve it. Near-misses that aren't actual incidents also are important."
Fran Ulmer, who chairs the US Arctic Research Commission, said at two separate Washington conferences that reporting near-misses helps not just in improving regulation, but also in learning from mistakes.
"I've been told the industry doesn't like what the Interior Department is proposing, but human beings are reluctant to change," she said during the Bipartisan Policy Center's Apr. 21 discussion on offshore Arctic oil and gas issues.
Williams said the center's key focus in 2014 is voluntary auditing of contractors and service companies that are not now required to have SEMS. "It's a journey with constant unease that an incident can happen," he said, adding, "At least now, we have a place for the offshore oil and gas industry to get together and share experiences and what they have shown."