Replies to post #1064 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[Kadaicher1]

Charlie, I have heard they are going to ask for two sets of shear rams on all GOM BOPs at least 4' apart for a start.
There are more changes with companies re-evaluating all employees and training and moving as required. This is worldwide, not just GOM.
Maintenance budgets are being increased.
Every angle is being investigated to make sure we cant have another Horizon.
I havnt heard anything yet for sure on changes to testing procedures, but we have already begun testing ROV stabs on bottom, without any advice or regulation.
Skilled crews need backing from shore base when pressured and threatened by operators, and are getting it.
I hear laws are being changed which will make the long distance heroes on the bank much more liable for bad decisions.

[DewDiligence]

XOM: This article from today’s Dallas Morning News shows that home-field
advantage is a concept that applies to journalism as well as sporting events.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/y!finance/exxon/stories/DN-exxonsafety_20bus.ART0.State.Edition1.1aa9ada.html

›Exxon Mobil Touts Safety Program

Sunday, June 20, 2010
By ELIZABETH SOUDER

Exxon Mobil Corp. had spent $180 million by 2006 trying to drill the world's deepest offshore well and walked away before finishing.

Company engineers concluded that the 30,000-foot well in the Gulf of Mexico's Blackbeard West formation was just too risky. They were following the company's rigorous safety system that was created after the Exxon Valdez oil tanker crashed.

"We basically decided that the well could not be safely continued based on what was in the well," said Exxon spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman.

At the time, analysts complained that the Irving-based oil giant didn't have the guts to drill. But compare the $180 million cost to the roughly $3 billion Exxon spent on the Valdez spill, or the tens of billions that BP PLC will spend cleaning up the mess after a rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since the BP explosion killed 11 workers and created a massive oil spill, Exxon has been touting its approach – and distancing itself from BP. Top Exxon officials are urging lawmakers not to restrict drilling after the incident at BP, which implemented a similar safety system just two years ago.

"We would not have drilled the well they did," Exxon chief executive Rex Tillerson told the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week.

The Obama administration placed a moratorium on deepwater drilling that is delaying two Exxon projects. Exxon has drilled 35 wells deeper than 4,000 feet in the Gulf of Mexico, and it operates 516 wells in the gulf.

Exxon's safety affects a lot of Texans. The company owns two large refineries on the Texas coast. It drills for oil and natural gas both offshore and on. And Exxon just bought Fort Worth natural gas company XTO Energy , one of the largest producers in the North Texas Barnett Shale.

Safety at the core

After the 1989 Valdez spill, Exxon gathered facility managers to create a new operating philosophy with safety at the core. Three years later, the company rolled out its new Constitution, its Articles of Confederation, its Bible: the Operational Integrity Management System.

"I don't know how we'd operate a facility without OIMS. It would be like building a house without studs in the walls. You can't do it," said Glenn Murray, Exxon's corporate safety program manager.

Exxon's managers came up with 11 tenets to ensure that every part of the company's operation consistently implements the best and safest practices.

The document, posted on Exxon's website, provides a framework for facility design, training, operations, handling contractors and implementing change. It calls for rigorous documentation, measurement and analysis. (Exxon people like to remind outsiders that the company is run by engineers.)

Exxon says it has reduced accidents. The company reported that its incident rate per 200,000 work hours dropped to 0.35 in 2009 from 0.43 the year before.

Last year, eight people died at Exxon facilities worldwide. Between 2005 and 2009, 39 people died.

Compare the number of deaths with those at BP, which reported 18 deaths last year. Between 2005 and 2009, the BP total is 64. That doesn't include the deaths this year after the gulf explosion.

The BP numbers do, however, include a 2005 explosion at BP's refinery in Texas City. The blast killed 15 people.

The Texas City incident prompted BP to develop its Operating Management System, which the company has implemented in 80 percent of its operations. A spokesman said that includes the deepwater Gulf of Mexico areas.

John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Co., said two years just isn't enough time for BP's new system to work completely.

"You've got to penetrate the minds and the hearts of people who implement these procedures, and that takes time and education and communication," he said.

At Exxon, on the other hand, "it oozes from the pores of everyone."

Hofmeister, who is promoting his new book Why We Hate the Oil Companies, added: "That is what they committed themselves to, so that never again would they face the kind of harsh judgment from society, by government, to something so embarrassing as a ship hitting a rock and losing so many millions of gallons of oil."

Financial choices

Maintaining such discipline costs money. Exxon's Murray said he doesn't know how much – probably a lot – but no one has done a cost-benefit analysis.

"That's like thinking, 'What's the cost benefit of breathing?' You've got to breathe and you've got to do [the Operating Integrity Management System] to stay in business," he said.

Of course, it's hard to argue with the financial choices of executives whose company earned $19.3 billion last year.

Under the safety management system, Exxon is fanatical about investigating even minor incidents. Food poisoning. A bee sting. A finger prick from a stapler.

"Even a paper cut," Murray said. "I know that sounds like a pretty bizarre example.

"But if we have a whole lot of paper cuts going on, we have to ask ourselves, well, what do we do to avoid paper cuts? Do we ask people to use gloves when they use the copy machine?"

A holiday food poisoning incident led to a new rule: A sign will accompany all community food items stating what time the food must go into the fridge or be tossed.

The stapler user got a tetanus shot. Just in case.‹