"Success is measured by everyone coming home from the end of a shift, safe and whole." With those words, Max Ruelokke welcomed participants to the Third International Regulators' Forum (IRF) Offshore Safety Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, in mid-October 2010. Ruelokke is Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (CNLOPB).

Looking forward

The conference theme was Offshore Safety: Where Do We Go From Here?, and recent offshore incidents in Australia (Montara blowout) and the U.S. (Macondo blowout) drove most discussions throughout the four days. Although delegates mostly represented regulators from eight countries, attendees included contingents of offshore drilling companies, operators, and industry and marine services.

Why do we need more regulation?

In the packed meeting room, between prepared presentations, some attendees questioned why more regulation is needed, such as safety cases in the U.S. offshore arena, while others rallied for global standardization of regulations. The conference format encouraged the bridging of divides through information sharing and an exchange of best practices between regulators and industry.

Program speakers over the four days included:

• Michael Bromwich, Director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)
• Jane Cutler, CEO of Australia's National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority
• Lars Herbst, Regional Director, Gulf of Mexico Region, BOEMRE
• Torleif Huesb�, Discipline Leader-Process Integrity of Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA)
• Stuart Pinks, CEO of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB)
• And industry representatives from Chevron, Noble, Shell, and Statoil

Regulators' stance

Michael Bromwich

Mr. Bromwich, speaking just a few weeks after a special meeting between BOEMRE and the IRF, said that safety practices and equipment have lagged far behind drilling technology over the last 30 years. The Bureau, he said, is exploring ways to partner with industry, academia, and others to ensure safety technology continues to keep up to date with drilling technology, to ensure that government is a full partner. "It is critical that we move forward together," he said.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is undertaking "the most aggressive and comprehensive reforms in the history of the U.S.," Bromwich said. The reforms include r emaking the former Minerals Management Service into three strong entities, a new policy whereby investigators recuse themselves from investigating former employers, and creating a new investigations and review unit. This will entail hiring "scores of inspectors

Jane Cutler

and engineers" and extensive training.

Ms. Cutler, in speaking of the October 2009 Montara incident, drove home that major accident events are not limited to deepwater activities and that limiting safety focus to deepwater is shortsighted. (Note: Although the Montara spill was one of Australia's worst oil disasters, no lives were lost.)

Words from the opposition

Among the contingent opposing additional regulations, many held the sentiment that "they already know what to do, so why aren't they doing it?" However, without more regulations or a closer watch and severe consequences for noncompliance with existing regulations, it seems the answer to that questions lies with and among those industry practitioners through collaboration and peer pressure.

Role of the regulator

So what is the role of regulators? Steve Walker, Head of the Offshore Division of the U.K.'s Health and Safety Executive suggested that regulators should:

Encourage "beyond compliance" cultures

• Set a legislative climate and regime that demands continuous improvement
• Adopt sophisticated regulatory approaches; establish dialogue and creative tension in regulations
• Encourage strong workforce involvement

Be a catalyst for learning

• Demand that companies learn from their own performance and experience
• Encourage and provide opportunities for offshore companies to learn from the performance of others
• Capture and promote good practice as well as bad

Always be dissatisfied

• Never happy, never satisfied
• Ask challenging questions
• Stretch targets and aspirations

More information

Consensus findings from roundtable discussions during the conference are published on the IRF's Internet site. Among the findings were:

• Regulatory regimes function most effectively when a single entity has broad safety and pollution prevention responsibility. Gaps, overlap, and confusion are not in the interest of safety or regulatory efficiency.
• The regulator's core responsibilities and objectives must be clearly identified. Managers must minimize distractions so that regulatory personnel can focus on these objectives.
• Safety management and regulatory priorities should be identified through a comprehensive risk assessment program. Training and competency development programs should be updated to reflect the new risk information. Contracting strategies should be reviewed to assess their safety and risk implications. 

In addition, the IRF is considering initiatives to build on conference outcomes. Those initiatives were promised to conference delegates by year's end. 

The International Regulators' Forum is composed of offshore oil and gas regulators from eight countries, who meet periodically to share experiences and to compare regulatory approach, safety, and performance.