Oil spill oversight? Offshore drillers around world largely regulate themselves on safety

[Robbien]

Source: AP

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - All around the world, Big Oil largely creates its own offshore safety rules. The U.S. government is not alone in ceding responsibility to the oil industry for the design of key safety features on offshore rigs, a trend coming under scrutiny worldwide following the deadly blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

Internationally, industry-driven regulation is the norm, not the exception -- and critics are calling for a re-examination of a system that puts crucial safety decisions into the hands of corporations motivated by profit.

An investigation shows other nations harvesting oil and gas from offshore fields, including Britain, Norway, Australia and Canada, have moved in the same direction: Governments set the general safety standards that must be met, but leave it to rig operators to work out the details.

The shift away from more heavy-handed regulation started about two decades ago and was based on the notion that oil companies best know the risks of offshore operations -- and how to minimize them.

But the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20 and another platform incident in the Timor Sea off Australia last year have raised concerns that Big Oil has been given too much leeway to police itself.

Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/05/oil_spill_oversight_offshore_d.html

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What really makes this news is that the AP is reporting it. Usually this story is only told in alternative news sites.

[Duer 157099]

1. Then I hope everyone around the world is paying close attention

Astonishing that the concept of letting the fox guard the henhouse being a bad idea is seemingly novel.

[protocol rv]

2. List how many oil workers were killed in blow outs in the last 10 years

Do you know how many oil rig workers were killed in blow outs in the last 10 years? I don't, but I don't remember reading about incidents such as this very often.

The way I see it, the system in the Gulf of Mexico needs to be improved - given the results we've seen. But it is not true the industry is self regulated, nor is it that unsafe - there are many more barrels spilled from oil tankers breaking up. Also, I have a sense the people working on the rigs realize it's their skin if something goes wrong, so they tend to be careful. Finally, the companies know it's going to cost them an arm and a leg to have an incident such as this.

Evidently BP cut too many corners, I don't think this was caused by God to punish gulf shrimp, or the USA because it invaded Iraq - this was human error in judgement, and it probably involved more than one set of decisions. But the overall record isn't that bad, and it can be fixed to make this type of activity much more successful.

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. "there are many more barrels spilled from oil tankers breaking up"

Can you back this up?

[JDPriestly]

4. It used to be well known in the oil business.

The OP is correct. Offshore oil drilling companies have a pretty good safety record when you consider how difficult their business is.