Risk Governance of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations

摘要

The book is edited by well-known academics from Norway (Lindoe), the States (Baram), and Germany (Renn) who also contributed with key chapters and published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. The main focus is on risk governance of offshore oil and gas operations against the backdrop of various connected issues in the offshore industry. These include the importance of the offshore oil and gas industry in Europe and the rest of the world; the involvement of sophisticated analytical methods, heavy engineering, large scale investment, complexity of projects; the balancing partnerships between various stakeholders in the offshore industry, including that of government regulators and the industry; the challenges in ensuring productivity and safety in deep water and difficult environments and the continuing quest for robust regulation by the different regulatory regimes. The significance of the regulatory regimes that govern safety of offshore operations is discussed in view of the different considerations and perspectives on the economics of the oil and gas industry. It also reflects on the lessons learnt from the world's worst offshore incidents that have shaped the regulatory frameworks worldwide such as the 1980 Alexander L. Kielland disaster in Norway, the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster on the UKCS, the 2009 Montara blow out and oil spill in the Timor Sea off the Australian coast, and the 2010 Macondo blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.