Advancing Understanding of Offshore Oil and Gas Systemic Risk in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Current State and Safety Reforms Since the Macondo Well–Deepwater Horizon Blowout (2023) / Chapter Skim
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3 Available Empirical Indicators of Offshore Industry Risk Profile
3 Available Empirical Indicators of Offshore Industry Risk Profile
Pages 73-96
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From page 73... ...
We begin with trend data on injuries, which are the longest time-series available, while also acknowledging that occupational injury rates are not indicators of the risk of disasters. We then review available data that could serve as indicators of major accidents, with a focus on incident data and trends that could address systemic risks as the committee defined it in Chapter 1.
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From page 74... ...
. Fatalities For OCS production, drilling, and decommissioning operations, almost all of which occur in the GoM, BSEE data report two fatalities in 2021, six fatalities in 2020, and six fatalities in 2019.1 Between 2014 and 2018, fatalities averaged one per year, while between the years 2011 and 2013, fatalities averaged 2 to 3.2 Although BSEE reports these fatalities, the investigation can be under the jurisdiction of other federal agencies, such as the U.S.
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From page 75... ...
BSEE reports that the agency does track more detailed incident data internally but does not make this information public.4 Regardless of improving trends in occupational safety, major offshore safety failures are not predictable based on the frequency of such events. There was a spate of major disasters in the late 1970s and 1980s: the Ixtoc 1 well blowout and major spill in Mexico's Bay of Campeche in 1970; the capsizing of the Alexander Kielland and the death of 123 people in the North Sea in 1980; the sinking of the Ocean Ranger off Newfoundland and the death of 84 people in 1982; the explosion and fire on the Piper Alpha and the deaths of 167 people in the North Sea in 1988; and the South Pass Block 60 (B platform)
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From page 76... ...
Process Safety Indicators Trends in process safety incidents (indicators of a barrier or control failure) should be better indicators of high-risk events and therefore may serve as components of systemic risk metrics.
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From page 77... ...
2018c 2019 2020 2021 Incident Types Lifting 185 91 105 143 165 177 138 110 97 26 111 169 274 259 Fires 144 130 106 141 109 121 92 82 71 15 77 84 87 117 Explosions 2 4 1 2 1 4 2 0 2 1 3 4 1 4 Musters 43 22 31 41 63 49 69 52 71 24 82 87 81 79 Gas releases 26 16 16 18 22 10 14 18 9 1 19 20 73 44 Collisions 27 8 11 9 18 12 11 6 13 3 6 10 7 3 Loss of well control 3 2 5 4 9 4 3 1 0 0 1 2 1 4 Incident Consequences Fatalitiesd 4 12 3 4 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 6 6e 2 Injuries 239 220 249 282 310 280 290 174 154 37 171 222 160 164 Numberf of oil spills 51 28 10 33 24 21 25 19 10 4 19 14 11 14 >1 bbl Total volume of oil 1,970 4,928,371 182 634 42 258 586 2,162 16,198 -- 38 46 485 1,104 spills >1 bbl NOTES: bbl = barrel of oil; OCS = Outer Continental Shelf. Data for 2009-2017 were reported by fiscal year.
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From page 78... ...
NOTES: LOWC = loss of well control; TIMS = Technical Information Management System. Number of LOWC incidents per million work hours recorded for drilling and well operations for entire OCS.
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From page 79... ...
48) and thereby appear to be potential systemic risk indicators.
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From page 80... ...
has collected and reported safety incidents from its members. The COS Annual Performance Report (APR)
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From page 81... ...
SPI 1 is defined to include one or more of the following: a fatality; five or more injuries in a single event; a Tier 1 Process Safety Event;9 a loss of well control event; $1 million or more in damage costs; or an oil spill in water of greater than or equal to 10,000 gallons. SPI definitions combine occupational injuries with process safety events, which compromises the potential for SPIs as indicators of systemic risk.
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From page 82... ...
NOTES: COS = Center for Offshore Safety; SPI = Safety Performance Indicator. Participating operator members reported 14 SPI 1 for 2020 compared to 4 for 2019; the increased number of SPI 1 incidents combined with the decreased work hours resulted in a frequency of 0.081 for 2020.
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From page 83... ...
aggregated industry safety data (ISD) , which are voluntarily provided company incident databases including near-miss and other safety data; (2)
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From page 84... ...
SafeOCS distinguishes near misses between personal and process safety, the latter of which could help in the development of systemic risk indicators. In February 2022, BTS released a public-facing dashboard that displays aggregated industry data submitted between 2018 and 2020.11 In contrast to reporting by the IOGP, the SafeOCS ISD program is structured to collect and aggregate safety incident or indicator data that include Tier 3 and 4 process safety events (BTS, 2019)
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From page 85... ...
• External leaks were the primary source of discovery, and the most common root causes from 2017 to 2021 were wear and tear (48.1 percent) , design issue (16.0 percent)
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From page 86... ...
• Subsurface Safety Valves º Surface Controlled Subsurface Safety Valves (SCSSVs) º Subsurface Controlled Subsurface Safety Valves (SSCSVs)
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From page 87... ...
Both BOP and SPPE failure rates and trends over time could be part of measuring industry risk, but little trend data are available, and these metrics focus on heavily on equipment rather than organizational management and behavior. If root cause analyses for BOP and SPPE failures were to trace back to organizational and management issues rather than immediate causes, such reports could serve as useful indicators of systemic risk.
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From page 88... ...
Thus, process safety risks may be higher in deepwater and occupational risks higher in shallow water. The BSEE document also identified several areas for improvement in BSEE oversight including of the audit process and thoroughness of corrective action plans.
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From page 89... ...
. In addition to incident data discussed above, the BSEE website provides aggregate data for offshore activities, the number of inspections, and the total number of offshore work hours performed by operators and contractors between 2010 and 2021.20 As an example of available data, the number of work hours that contractors have performed, on average, is more than 85 percent of all work over this period (see Figure 3-8)
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From page 90... ...
SOURCE: https://www.data.bsee.gov/Main/Platform.aspx. performance improvement plan in order to address systemic environmental and safety concerns.
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From page 91... ...
AVAILABLE EMPIRICAL INDICATORS 91 Platforms <500 Feet Water Depth Platforms ≥500 Feet Water Depth Percent Percent No. >25 Years Avg.
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From page 92... ...
Reporting of PSEs into IOGP's four tiers would increase the availability and value of the data being reported, especially for tiers 3 and 4, which could serve as leading indicators of systemic risks tracing back to organizational management. Mandatory reporting to SafeOCS of well control and production safety system equipment performance indicates that such equipment failures resulting in LOC are infrequent, but there are ap parent issues on nonreporting of SPPE data.
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From page 93... ...
Conclusion 3-5: Although industry-wide safety performance indicator data have been developed and substantially improved since Macondo, the data are not sufficiently mature to estimate the industry's systemic risk profile. Today, assessment of the industry risk profile will have to depend on qualitative indicators and expert judgment rather than good empirical indicators.
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From page 94... ...
2019. Safety Performance Indicators -- Process Safety Events -- 2019 Data.
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From page 95... ...
2019. Notice to Lessees and Operators of Federal Oil, Gas, and Sulphur Leases and Pipe line Right-of-Way Holders on the Outer Continental Shelf.
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