Why is action needed?
- Accidents happen for a reason; they are not mere matters of chance. By better understanding their causes, we can prevent their recurrence.
- International data on accidents at offshore oil and gas facilities are incomplete and inconsistent.
- Some governments release little or no information about accidents within their jurisdiction, and may not even confirm that investigations are being conducted.
- Some companies provide little or no information about their accidents.
- Prosecutions, legal actions, and domestic politics impede investigations and delay or prevent a complete understanding of how accidents happened.
What should be done? Governments should support an international treaty to improve data gathering and analyses and help prevent future disasters at offshore facilities. Here are some suggested provisions for such a treaty:
- Nations agree on accident reporting criteria, definitions, and information collection procedures.
- Nations agree to investigate any accidents within their jurisdiction that exceed specified casualty, pollution, or damage thresholds.
- Nations agree to release investigative reports within specified time frames.
- Nations agree to assist each other with investigations.
- Nations agree to delay prosecutions and enforcement actions until the official accident investigations are completed.
We have been talking about accident investigation and information shortcomings for decades. It is time to do something!
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 
I concur. However, this is not an easy task. Nations only seem to collect their own data- offshore needs to be global data. Companies unless compelled will not release data. Class societies ought to collect data – some do, but only public data is collected in a database that can be externalized as shipowner information is “protected”. Lloyd’s List used to collect good information but recent copies omit many of the offshore incidents. Newspaper clippings here and there will pull some up. Several accidents of interest seem to take a long time to have a report on. One on a liftboat observing birds at a potential offshore wind farm site collapsed a while back, ended up on the beach with loss of life but the official report is not out yet – no reason given. I kept an accident database for years, but one has to be meticulous, and nowadays its possible to capture the backup electronically. DNV does a good job collecting for WOAD, their database, but there are many incidents and lessons learned that are soon forgotten.