Best Available and Safest Technologies for Offshore Oil and Gas Operations: Options for Implementation by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: The National Academies Press
Published: 2014-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

• Reduced risk of accidents,

• Mitigation of impacts if an accident were to occur, and

• Any ancillary benefits associated with the new technology (such as a reduction in unplanned outages).

The committee notes the extreme difficulty of constructing quantitative estimates of the reduced risk of offshore accidents or likely reductions in their severity as the result of the installation of a safety technology. For example, in a benefit–cost analysis, a key benefit of a better safety technology would be the product of two factors: the cost of an accident if it were to occur and the reduction in the probability of it occurring if the new technology is adopted. A simplistic example is a new technology that would reduce the risk of a $1 billion accident by 10 percent. The benefit would be valued at $100 million. Quantifying the two factors would be exceedingly difficult. First, the costs of a hypothetical accident would be difficult to predict beyond qualitative statements that the type of accident prevented would probably result in small, medium, or large costs. Attaching a number to the second factor—how likely is it that an accident would occur without the new technology and how much less likely would it become if the technology is adopted—is equally problematic if not more so. The previous section on probabilistic risk assessment provides insights into how difficult these types of determinations will be. In view of the challenges associated with technology assessments and economic analyses and of the role played by expert judgments, BSEE should seek access to the requisite expertise, including a multidisciplinary group of individuals with economic, engineering, and scientific skills; access to experts with unique technical skills; and the ability to request independent reviews (Recommendation 3-3).

The committee also notes that, since the economic analyses will tend to be qualitative, the acquisition by BSEE of senior staff with the skills for both understanding these complexities and uncertainties and effectively communicating them to senior U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) officials will be important.

It would be unfortunate if the regulatory and permitting processes become bogged down by the unrealistic expectation that economic analyses will create a “bright line” for decision makers with regard to what constitutes BAST. Additional data and analyses will provide valuable insights and help BSEE evaluate the roles of qualitative and quantitative risk assessment approaches in narrowing the range of risk possibilities and making BAST determinations. Recognition of the need to apply sound judgment will be needed.

Personnel, Skills, and Experience

Building new and necessary competencies within BSEE will be an enormous challenge. Historically, the regulator has relied heavily on operating companies to provide the bulk of technical work. As BSEE enhances its role in the evaluation of BAST, it will need access to personnel with experience not comparable with that of personnel in its predecessor agencies. Potential solutions will be discussed in Chapter 4. For the evaluation of BAST, the key will be to have access to staff with knowledge of and experience with the specific systems and technologies being

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