UK operators are in the midst of implementing a wide-ranging set of improvements recommended by a UK government-commissioned review of the North Sea safety regime prompted by the Macondo tragedy nearly three years ago.

The substantial amount of work done and the future workload that remains following the findings of the Maitland Report are burdensome but very necessary.

The review by Geoffrey Maitland, professor of energy engineering at Imperial College, London, was commissioned to examine the safety regime and review other Macondo reports. His report in December 2011 broadly gave the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) regime a clean bill of health.

But it also identified areas where regulations and management systems still need to change. The industry association Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) quickly accepted and acted – and is still acting – on much of his guidance, within timeframes agreed upon with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

However, some of the guidance required by Maitland on operations and practices is not due to be published for some time.

Ed Davey, secretary of state at the DECC, has established a steering group to implement most of Maitland’s recommendations, which include new guidance on keeping critical safety equipment in good repair. The Well Life Cycle Practices Forum, set up to share best practices on well management and design, is being made permanent.

These moves will help to appease the concerns that Maitland had. One of his comments concerning incidents requiring emergency closure of BOPs that had occurred on the UKCS was, “It is not clear that the lessons from such incidents were always as widely or rapidly communicated and implemented as they should be.” He also added that the “capping and containment of free-flowing deepwater wells and the development of fail-safe flow barriers remain key technology challenges for the industry.”

While heartened by OGUK’s efforts in the development of new well-capping equipment, Maitland said, “Encouraging as this response is, it is only the first stage in what is needed in terms of improved and new technology to reduce the risks of deepwater drilling and to minimize the timescales and consequences of any failures of well integrity. The industry must take responsibility for investing immediately in the R&D necessary to address these critical issues.”

The industry has indeed taken responsibility. OGUK has produced financial responsibility guidelines, which propose a way for operators to assess potential costs of well control, pollution remediation, and compensation in the event of an incident. Operators also are now required to carry out emergency response exercises every three years rather than every five years.

Malcolm Webb, OGUK’s CEO, said the Maitland Review had highlighted where improvements were possible and that the majority of these have been implemented.

But before we start to relax, Brad Corson, management committee chairman of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, said that everything the association does is driven by one thing: maintaining the upstream industry’s license to operate. “In a global environment a single incident can jeopardize existing and future operations for all,” he said, adding that despite hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, this license is up for renewal every day by international agencies, regional bodies, and national governments.

In the days ahead, when the burden of implementing stringent safety regimes might weigh a little heav ily, it is worth remembering that this industry’s license to operate should never be taken for granted.

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