CSB Moves On With BP Rig Investigation

At a Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) hearing last week, offshore oil drilling experts from Norway, Australia, and the U.K. recommended that the U.S. shift to a nonprescriptive approach to regulate ocean drilling operations, a strategy the countries’ regulators use. The experts described an agreement between drilling companies and regulators, in which each company lays out a plan for how drilling must safely take place and each nation’s regulators approve and oversee implementation of the company plan. The countries moved to this “safety case” approach after huge offshore drilling accidents in their regions. The speakers underscored the need to adequately fund such a program—either with government money or a levy on companies—and to gain support from regulated oil companies. The daylong hearing was the latest event in CSB’s investigation of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. CSB has interviewed more than 30 witnesses and is taking part in the Department of the Interior and the Coast Guard’s forensic examination of the failed blowout preventer, which should be completed in February 2011.