Best Available and Safest Technologies for Offshore Oil and Gas Operations: Options for Implementation
The National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council have released the prepublication version of Best Available and Safest Technologies for Offshore Oil and Gas Operations: Options for Implementation. The report explores a range of options for improving the implementation of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI’s) congressional mandate to require the use of best available and safety technologies (BAST) in offshore oil and gas operations.
In the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Congress directs the Secretary of the Interior to regulate oil and gas operations in federal waters. The act mandates that the Secretary “shall require, on all new drilling and production operations and, wherever practicable, on existing operations, the use of the best available and safest technologies which the Secretary determines to be economically feasible, wherever failure of equipment would have a significant effect on safety, health, or the environment, except where the Secretary determines that the incremental benefits are clearly insufficient to justify the incremental costs of utilizing such technologies.”
The report, which was requested by DOI’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), also reviews options and issues that BSEE is already considering to improve implementation of the BAST requirement.
TRB is a division of the National Academies, which include the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council.
This Summary Last Modified On: 9/17/2014