BP oil spill report calls for single policing agency
By RUSS BRITT
A single governmental agency should be used to insure offshore drilling safety in order to avoid disasters like the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, a national research group said Wednesday.
A 135-page report from the National Academy of Engineering found that one agency should oversee an "integrated approach" regarding system safety when it comes to deepwater operations.
"The United States should fully implement a hybrid regulatory system that incorporates a limited number of prescriptive elements into a pro-active, goal-oriented risk management system for health, safety, and the environment," the report said.
Commissioned by the US Interior Department, the report comes 20 months after the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon disaster in which the oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and injuring 16 others.
The explosion was caused by a blowout in the Macondo oil well that ended up shooting millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took several months before BP, Halliburton and Transocean could cap the spewing well, forcing the US to put a moratorium on deepwater drilling and put a crimp in the Gulf's seafood production.
The recommendation could end up flying in the face of what the industry thinks it needs to regulate itself, though officials from the American Petroleum Institute had yet to comment directly on the suggestion.
The industry moved to create a Center for Offshore Safety in March, a move that API president Jack Gerard said at the time that the center "will promote the highest level of safety for offshore operations, through an effective program that addresses management practices, communication and teamwork, and which relies on independent, third-party auditing and verification."
But the academy's report implies that more needs to be done than to rely on the industry to police itself.
"Industry should greatly expand [research and development] efforts focused on improving the overall safety of offshore drilling in the areas of design, testing, modeling, risk assessment, safety culture, and systems integration. Such efforts should encompass well design, drilling and marine equipment, human factors, and management systems," the report said.
API group director of upstream and industry operations Erik Milito did note Wednesday that the industry assembled four task forces to examine offshore drilling safety.
In a written statement, he said: "The actions of these task forces have led to improvements in the capability to prevent, contain and respond to a potential spill."
Dow Jones Newswires
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