Collaboration will be critical as new offshore oil and gas safety standards and developed and best practices are identified, US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Brian Salerno declared.
"The risks inherent in offshore activities will never be fully eliminated, but working together, we can substantially reduce those risks through the cultivation of a robust safety culture across the industry and within our own regulatory organizations," he said in an Oct. 22 address to the International Regulators Forum 2013 Offshore Safety Conference in Perth.
He noted that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha Platform explosion and fire in the British North Sea, which took 167 lives. It's also been 4 years since the Montara offshore well accident off the Western Australia coast released 29,600 bbl of crude into the water, and more than 3 years since the Macondo deepwater well incident killed 11 people and spilled nearly 5 million bbl of oil, Salerno added.
Salerno said while he believes the US has made exemplary progress following Macondo, inherent risks associated with all offshore activities persist. "We were reminded of that during the past year with three major well-control incidents and a separate explosion resulting in the loss of life," he said.
Managing ever-present risks involve, first, identifying not only operational, but also financial, technical, geologic, and human behavior risks, BSEE's director suggested. Next, risks have to be quantified, acceptable levels identified, and work done to mitigate them, he said.
BSEE has expanded incident reporting and improved analysis to improve data, Salerno said. It created a program to evaluate Best Available and Safest Technologies; began to organize the Ocean Energy Safety Institute, and revitalized its own standards program while continuing to work closely with the American Petroleum Institute and other outside groups.
Recent changes
Establishing a strong offshore safety culture is not easy, he conceded. "For example, while the actual drilling activities in 2012 in Alaska were accomplished safely, a series of mishaps and near-mishaps made it clear that companies need to address risks across all phases of their operations, including those that are primarily conducted by contractors," Salerno said.
He said BSEE recently finalized a second set of Safety and Environmental Management Systems as a result. Operators, not BSEE, will decide how best to apply those tools to their management systems and processes, he added.
"Past incidents or accidents are a consideration, but this also may not be the best indicator of risk mitigation when you are dealing with low probability-high risk events," Salerno said. "The challenge for the industry is to maintain vigilance related to safety and avoid becoming complacent."
