BSEE Chief Says Most-Serious Offshore Incidents Declining
He spoke at last week's Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, where BSEE launched SafeOCS, an Outer Continental Shelf near-miss reporting system.
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Brian Salerno announced the launch of the SafeOCS program, an initiative aimed at collecting and analyzing near miss data, and he also released BSEE's first annual peport, which presents the agency's analysis of offshore activities, trends, indicators, incidents, and other key data points. Salerno announced both during a news conference at last week's Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.
He said BSEE is working to identify all available methods to learn more about the causes of all serious offshore incidents. SafeOCS, an Outer Continental Shelf near miss reporting system, was formally launched with the activation of the program's reporting line, 1-844-738-9OCS. The program's website will be available next month.
"I strongly encourage participation in the system by the entire offshore community as a way to help improve the overall safety posture of the industry," he said. "Shared awareness of safety trends will better equip everyone to focus on the right things and thereby drive down the risk of serious incidents."
SafeOCS is a voluntary and confidential system in which the Bureau of Transportation Statistics will collect and analyze near miss reports submitted by individual OCS workers, companies, and others. Aggregated data will be shared with the general public through the BTS website and used to identify safety trends and increase understanding of offshore risk.
Salerno said the 2014 annual report outlines current BSEE initiatives and the agency's plans to reduce risk in the coming year. "Part of managing risk is monitoring the trends we are seeing offshore, and gauging the effectiveness of our approach. We are pleased to see that some of the most serious incidents offshore, including fatalities, are decreasing. But our work is far from done. For example, the annual report observes an increase in loss of well control events. That's troubling, given the potential for such incidents to have grave consequences."