I haven’t posted recently for a variety of reasons, but I see that folks are still visiting the blog. Thanks for checking-in. For those who are formulating their own views about what really happened and why, the documents at the House Energy and Commerce Committee site are mandatory reading.
Also, many thanks to those who have asked about my testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. My statement is here. Kudos to Chairman Bingaman and the very capable committee staff for their thoughtful and professional approach to these hearings.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 
Kudos to you also Bud. I read the transcript of the hearing today and appreciated your honest, straight-forward, and professional way of responding to some very tough questions. Not an easy thing to do — sitting in the hot seat like that. But not surprisingly, you did very well.
Thanks Jan.
I read your statement to the Sanate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources with considerable interest and concurrance. Except on one point, actually. You refer to the fact that DWH has had injury free operation for seven years, the CEO of Transocean makes the same point. This comment, in my view, has only limited relevance for a case like the present, and may to some extent be misleading.
It has been an emerging realisation during the last 10-15 years in the petroleum and petrochemical sectors, which certainly was boosted by the comments made by the Baker commission on the Texas City explosion, that statistics on personell injuries has quite limited relevance when it comes to evaluation of the risk for major accidents. The Baker commission found that BP’s strong reliance on injury statistics, was one of the contributing factors that allowed the conditions for a major accident not to be realised and mitigated in advance.
The same realisation was made by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (now Petroleum Safety Authority) around year 2000, when the Risk Level Project (RNNP) was initiated. This programme which produces annual reports (www.ptil.no/rnnp) has separate indicators for major hazard risk (including blowouts) precursors, barrier test statistics, personell injuries, working environment, occupational illness, management of safety critical maintenance work, perceived risk, etc.
When the work started, it was clearly demonstrated that the curves for risk to personell and major hazard risk were completely uncorrelated. I have been associated with the programme in an advisory role since conception, and I never stop to wonder why there is so little interest from the international E&P society in exploring the vast amounts of data available.
Jan-Erik,
Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed comment. I agree that workplace injury statistics have limited relevance to major process safety accidents like the Macondo blowout. However, I was asked to provide input on the deepwater safety and compliance record, and the injury record comment was in response to that request.
I have reviewed each of the reports on the PSA Risk Level Project, and am very impressed with that work. I don’t think the international E&P community (industry and regulators) have done enough to collect and assess these types of data in a serious and coordinated manner.
Your informed input is very much appreciated.
Bud
Thanks for the link to the hearing transcripts, I found them pretty useful in trying to ascertain the appropriateness of Obama’s comments that each company was trying to deflect the blame onto one another. Personally, I don’t think they were.