P. 2 ~ Continued - Final Macondo report calls for 'system safety' approach
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Both the industry and its regulators had misplaced confidence in blowout preventers' ability to act as fail-safe mechanisms in the event of a blowout despite numerous past warnings of BOP systems potentially failing, the final report continued. "The inability of the BOP to perform under certain conditions was seen early in the decade, but did not result in performance criteria or minimum specifications for purchasers and designers to work with, even though there's a significant safety consideration involved," said Roger L. McCarthy, founder and owner of McCarthy Engineering in Palo Alto, Calif., and a member of the academies' investigating committee who also participated in the teleconference.
"BOPs are a great idea," Winter added. "They have provided a measure of safety over the years they have been used. But they don't work all the time. The conditions they are expected to operate in can be very difficult. The best approach is not to rely on the BOP, but to make sure that adequate safety measures are taken during the design and construction of the well itself."
Areas of responsibility
The final report also said that well operators should ultimately be responsible and accountable for well integrity because they are the only ones able to see all design, construction, and operations aspects. It also said that the drilling contractor should be held responsible and accountable for offshore equipment's operation and safety.
It also called on the industry and its regulators to significantly expand formal education and training of offshore operations' employees to ensure that they can properly implement safety measures. Winter applauded DOI's establishment of its Safety and Environmental Management Systems program as a good initial step, but added that there are limits on how quickly regulators can move. "Highly skilled individuals independently need to review safety case documents and evaluate approaches," he said. "Given the challenge of hiring the right individuals, we realize this will take time. There are a number of examples in Norway, the UK, and Australia where similar transitions have been made."
Requiring that such evaluations be conducted only by certified professional engineers could be a problem, another committee member warned during the teleconference. "The registered PE, as it exists right now, is something of a state-by-state qualification," said Paul M. Bommer, a senior petroleum engineering lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin. "Not all the states have the same testing or rights and privileges. I may go further and say that most states don't reciprocate. So it may be necessary to take a look at how these folks are licensed and see if there could be a meeting of the minds to reach a national standard."
The final report said that US offshore drilling operations have been regulated by several government agencies, often with overlapping responsibilities. It recommended establishment of a single entity to integrate system safety offshore. It also said that incident reporting would be improved if anonymous reports were allowed, and called on corporations to investigate all such reports and disseminate lessons learned to personnel and the industry as a whole.
"We focused on the safety culture because we viewed it as a long-term way of instituting the necessary care and sensitivity that is being discussed right now," Winter said. "Given all this attention, we believe it is reasonable to resume drilling in the gulf, although further improvements are needed."
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