The ocean waters offshore host vast fossil-fuel resources. In 2013, federal offshore oil production made up 18 percent of total U.S. production, a figure that is likely to increase in the future as onshore sources dwindle and we demonstrate the potential of new offshore reserves.
The Obama administration earlier this year unveiled a plan to open up limited areas in the Gulf of Mexico, Arctic, and Atlantic to oil and gas leasing. At the same time, the administration is looking to impose stricter regulations on offshore drilling operations, which were developed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But is the industry ready to meet these higher expectations of safety?
Putting a Number on Risk
In order to rationally discuss the components of safety, let’s talk about offshore drilling in terms of risk. From a quantitative standpoint, one can calculate risk as the product of the hazard and vulnerability. The first factor is the hazard, which is the likelihood of a disaster occurring, and the other factor is the vulnerability, or the expected loss from a disaster.
To look at overall risk, one would multiply hazard by vulnerability for all possible accidents and then sum these products. The resulting risk would be the total expected loss for the proposed drilling operation.
There are a variety of factors that contribute to a higher hazard level in the offshore environment compared with the onshore environment. Offshore wells can be more than a mile down in water, where very high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT) conditions beneath the seafloor raise the chance of well blowout and put more physical stress on equipment.
