BSEE Releases Annual Report on Oil, Gas
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement released its first ever annual report on May 5, coinciding with a press conference at the 2015 Offshore Technology Conference.
The BSEE 2014 Annual Report summarizes oil and gas activities from the past years, presents comparisons to previous years, and describes BSEE’s analysis of trends. The Annual Report also outlines current BSEE initiatives and the agency’s plans to reduce risk in the coming year.
Some notable statistics from the report include the following:
- Total US gas production for 2014 came in at 1,332,457,785 MCF (thousand cubic feet) with over 95% coming from the Gulf of Mexico region. Alaska was the second largest producer of gas followed by the Pacific region.
- Total US oil production for 2014 was 528,348,277 barrels, of which 96% originated in the Gulf of Mexico. The Pacific region ranked second and Alaskan ranked third.
- The BSEE invested nearly $14 million in 30 new projects in Fiscal Year 2014 to develop and assess oil spill mitigation options.
- There was an increase in deepwater floating drilling rig activity from 40 (19 drill ships and 21 semisubmersibles) in 2013 to 52 (33 drill ships and 19 semisubmersibles in 2014). In addition, six new drill ships are expected to start work in the Gulf of Mexico in 2015.
- Over $5 million was collected from 53 cases from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2014 for violations on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
- The number of incidents occurring on the OCS saw an overall decline in the period of 2011-2014 compared to 2007-2010.
- Most OCS fatalities (44%) arose from explosions or fires.
- Major collisions on the OCS have been declining since 2011
- A majority of major incidents were determined to be caused, at least in part, by human performance factors, including communications, training, and equipment operation difficulties.
“Part of managing risk is monitoring the trends we are seeing offshore, and gauging the effectiveness of our approach,” said Director Salerno. “We are pleased to see that some of the most serious incidents offshore, including fatalities, are decreasing. But our work is far from done. For example, the Annual Report observes an increase in loss of well control events. That’s troubling, given the potential for such incidents to have grave consequences.”
The BSEE additionally announced the launch of the SafeOCS program. SafeOCS is a voluntary and completely confidential system, in which the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) will collect and analyze near-miss reports submitted by individual OCS workers, companies, and others. The aggregated data will be shared with the general public through the BTS website, and used to identify safety trends and increase understanding of offshore risk.