Houston Maritime Attorneys Call For Better Offshore Worker Protection As Deep-Water Drilling Resumes
Oil companies are obliged to better protect their offshore workers when deep-water drilling starts again this month in the Gulf of Mexico, Houston maritime attorney Kurt Arnold says. Arnold spoke in reaction to the recent approval of the first deep-water drilling permit since the April 20 BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster. That horrific accident killed 11 offshore workers, injured several others and triggered the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
According to The Houston Chronicle, Noble Energy will begin the drilling in late March in its Santiago prospect about 70 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana. The company was drilling there before federal officials imposed a five-month moratorium.
“Our sincere hope is that getting back to business in the Gulf doesn’t lead to business as usual when it comes to the safety of offshore workers,” said Arnold, a partner in the Houston maritime law firm of Arnold & Itkin LLP, which is currently representing several Transocean workers who were injured in the Deepwater Horizon fire and explosion.
“New regulations are aimed at ensuring workplace safety for oil workers, and it’s going to be up to oil companies to follow those rules and up to federal officials to make sure companies comply,” Arnold said. “We can’t go back to the way it was before.
In an editorial piece in The Houston Chronicle, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said the permit had been issued because Noble Energy had shown that it could drill its deep-water well safely and that it could contain any subsea blowout.
According to The Washington Post, new safety regulations will require oil and gas exploration companies to have in place specific procedures that are intended to prevent a well blow-out, such as the one that occurred with the Deepwater Horizon.
As the newspaper reported, a new workplace safety rule will also require drill operators to identify and address hazards as well as safety procedures and strategies for all phases of drilling.
Jason Itkin, a Houston maritime lawyer and partner of Arnold & Itkin, said the burden will be on oil and gas exploration companies to follow the new rules.
“Before last April, there was a culture of putting profit before safety, and we can never return to that culture,” Itkin said. “Offshore workers need to get back to drilling because they need the work. What they don’t need is another tragedy.”
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