NOIA: Offshore safety regulations must reflect sound engineering practices and design

National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) President Erik Milito said NOIA will review and work with industry and regulators to ensure that the proposed regulatory changes increase safety and decrease risk after the Department of the Interior announced proposed changes to the Well Control Rule.

“The Well Control Rule is a highly technical rule; logical and collaborative updates must flow through subject matter experts to promote decisions based upon sound engineering practices and design,” Milito said.
The 2019 revisions to the Well Control Rule addressed technical problems and cleared up ambiguity with the original rulemaking. Two hundred and seventy four of the 342 provisions in the original Well Control Rule were left unchanged.

“Any further updates to the Well Control Rule should follow a similar tailored approach that does not result in unintended adverse safety consequences,” he said.

"Nothing is more important to the oil and gas industry or to the regulator than the safety of our people and their communities and the environmental protection of our waters and coasts. Every barrel of oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico is a barrel produced under some of the highest environmental and safety standards in the world. Our industry has built world-class oil and gas production with a smaller environmental footprint and has been at the forefront of developing new safety equipment and improving safety standards. Our industry embraces a cycle of continuous improvement and innovation with a focus on ever-improving safety in operations.

“We appreciate the opportunity to work with BSEE on our mutual objective of safe and environmentally responsible energy development.”