BP spill chair urges safety, cooperation

NEW ORLEANS -The former co-chair of the presidential commission appointed to investigate the BP Macondo oil spill offered support for the fledgling Center for Offshore Safety but criticized the group's close ties to an industry trade organization.

In an 11 August 2011 address to the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Technical Symposium, former National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill co-chair William Reilly also defended the commission's controversial assertions that the industry had been plagued by a 'culture of complacency' and 'systemic' problems that compromised safety prior to the 20 April 2010 blowout.

While most of the industry response to the disaster was 'very positive,' Reilly said, some oil & gas officials 'have not internalized the full impact of what happened, and that the industry as a whole, not just BP, was responsible.'

Among the presidential commission's findings, which were submitted to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement earlier this year, was a conclusion that the evolution of safe practices had not kept pace with technology in deepwater exploration and that, rather than address the issue, oil companies allowed a 'culture of complacency' to develop. Several high-profile industry officials angrily rejected the charge.

'They have said publicly and with feeling that this is an unfair characterization-that their company was, and is, far from complacent,' Reilly said of officials from operators with better than average safety records. 'They consider the conclusion a slur on good companies.

'I understand their reaction. And yet these same leaders, some of whom pointed out that thousands of deepwater wells have been drilled without serious incident as evidence of vigilance regarding safety, nevertheless acknowledged, as BP's CEO Tony Hayward told me in a phone conversation shortly after the commission began its work, that the industry had no effective subsea containment capability.'

The Marine Well Containment Company and Helix Energy Solutions have since introduced subsea spill response systems for use in the Gulf of Mexico.

'Industry leaders need not accept the judgment that they have been part of a systemic safety-challenged enterprise,' Reilly said. 'But they should still recognize their self-interest in a system-wide response to guard more effectively against an outlier company' by supporting both industry-wide initiatives to increase safety and BOEMRE's requests for increased funding and beefed-up staff.

The Center for Offshore Safety is being developed to promote safe practices and audit offshore oil & gas operators. The group, whose governing board is scheduled to meet for the first time later this month, was modeled in part on the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations set up after the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident in Pennsylvania. Unlike that group, which operates independent of any nuclear industry trade organizations, however, COS will be an outgrowth of the American Petroleum Institute, best known to the general public as an industry lobbying group.

'I think the optics would have been better served by some distance from API,' Reilly said of COS's founding.

'I don't think it's a mortal threat to the effectiveness of the agency. I think it's probably not the best public relations that they could have. But if there is Chinese Wall - if there is a genuine separation of the advocacy functions of API and this new institute…it is going to be very effective.'

COS has announced that it will be based in Houston rather than Washington, DC, where API has its headquarters.

Reilly called the creation of COS a 'gratifying response' to the commission's conclusions but said the new organization's credibility could hinge on its ability to establish 'an appropriate distance from the advocacy role of API.' The Deepwater Technical Symposium continues Friday, 12 August 2011.

By: Russell McCulley,
rmcculley@offshore-engineer.com