Modernizing the U.S. Offshore Oil and Gas Inspection Program for Increased Agility and Safety Vigilance
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), in seeking to
augment and improve its offshore oil and gas inspection
program, should focus less on inspecting all oil platforms and become more outcome-based by
focusing on the riskiest entities.
These are among the findings in
TRB Special Report 338: Modernizing the U.S. Offshore
Oil and Gas Inspection Program for Increased Agility and Safety Vigilance,
from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Given the expectation that it inspect each offshore facility at least once per year, BSEE
faces many challenges as it seeks to fulfill its stated mission “to promote safety, protect the
environment, and conserve resources through vigorous regulatory oversight.” Although BSEE
has taken a number of initiatives to meet these challenges, it faces many constraints and will
need to make many strategic-level choices to innovate and evolve its inspection program to keep
pace with the continually changing offshore energy landscape.
This Summary Last Modified On: 3/3/2022