Exploration and Production Prominent Industry Considerations

Greed seems to have filled the need for safety.

A recent independent joint report by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council on the aftermath of the British Petroleum (BP) 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill suggests that the oil industry and its appointed legal regulators from the federal government put safety into the backwater for exploration and production.

Commissioned by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the study stated that the Deepwater Horizon rig blowout was caused by a series of “flawed decisions” rooted on “a deficient overall systems approach to safety” by the mix of companies drilling the Macondo well such as BP, Halliburton, and Transocean.

Titled “Macondo Well- Deepwater Horizon Blowout, Lessons for Improving Offshore Drilling Safety,” it buttressed other findings on the causes of the incident while putting a greater emphasis on its specifics. It also positioned the country’s major engineering organization as one of the supporters of the call to fix the blowout preventer which failed in its ultimate task leading to untold environmental destruction.

The report underscored repetitive warnings “about potential failures of existing BOP (blowout preventer) systems” in the past decade. It took the petroleum industry and federal regulators to task for their non-observance of safety measures with blowout preventers given misplaced confidence.

Said Donald C. Winter, report committee chairman, positive developments in both industry and regulation are comforting yet he argued that there is need for more action.

In a conference call, he affirmed the government’s concern for action which is not knee-jerk or “a transient response in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon.”

Positively commenting on the report, the Interior Department expressed satisfaction of the reforms on regulation it put in place since the incident.  It said stricter regulations were introduced, which led to the industry to act accordingly.

However, the report was disdainful of the level of reforms the industry is willing to undertake and its sustainability with its research and development endeavors minimized and outsourced in favor “disproportionately on exploration, drilling, and production technologies as opposed to safety.”

As expected, the petroleum industry cried foul over the alleged downsizing of its R&D efforts. Says Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute, “The industry is leading the way in applying the best elements of the most successful existing safety programs, including the use of independent auditing and certification by third parties.”

While engineering consultant Roger McCarthy, a member of the report committee, recognizes that the industry has had a lowered confidence on blowout preventers since the incident, there is yet to be set-up a standard for these machines and independent certification on their effectiveness.