« BP Oil Spill and the Failed Federal Response Raises the Ghost of Katrina | Home | Washington : British Prime Minister Comes To Town »
OIL: What Obama has to learn from Thatcher
By The Anglo American | July 17, 2010
The Piper Alpha Memorial, Aberdeen, Scotland.
Deep sea oil drilling can be safe. You only have to look at Britain’s North Sea today to know this. Britain has exploited its oil and gas reserves in the North Sea for over 50 years. But that was not always the case. It took the tragic loss of 167 lives before safety caught up with risk. That and a British Prime Minister who, was less concerned with politics, and squarely focused on solutions.
Piper Alpha
This remains the worlds worst off shore oil disaster. It took place 120 miles off the North East Scottish coast on the 6th July 1988. Not one but three wells exploded, one after the other, on the American platform known as Piper Alpha. But most of the victims died from a gas leak before being incinerated by the explosion that followed.
As with the Deep Water Horizon it took time to wrestle control of the well from nature. Some of the highly skilled oil engineers working in the Gulf today cut there teeth on capping Piper Alpha in 80 m.p.h. winds with 70 ft. waves.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
But for Britain’s Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, her priority was to find what caused the disaster. Blame was not her game. There was no shake down of Occidental to use the words of Republican Rep., Joe Barton. There was no finger pointing at the American owners of Piper Alpha. In other words there were no political smoke screens that would allow the Government to shirk its responsibility or deflect criticism.
The Cullen inquiry found Occidental negligent of safety procedures. When the control room on Piper alpha was evacuated there was no plan B. They lost control as they walked out the door.
But Occidental was never prosecuted. Prime Minister Thatcher saw no benefit to the country in dragging Occidntal through the courts. What was far more important was to substantially raise the bar on safety.
And they did. The resulting regulatory structure in Britain puts the responsibility of safety into the hands of the oil company. They have to convince the authorities that their drilling platforms and extraction are safe before they proceed. Which is not the case in the US where regulation operates the other way round. And it does not work.
As is often the case, the future rewards those in the present who understand the past. President Obama would do well to look at Piper Alpha and understand how vital it was for Britain to make its back yard safe.
Equally the US should consider, as a top priority, how to make all aspects of oil safe. Not just deep, sea oil drilling but the refineries and storage as well. But first, the American people and its Government have to acknowledge to themselves how important the region’s resources are to its future. The White House has yet to show clear thinking on this. As Britain shows, when the will is there the way foreword is clear.
A fitting epitaph for the 167 worker and rescuers who lost their lives on Piper Alpha might be:
“Through tragedy and adversity we find wisdom”.
These words cannot be engraved on any memorial for the 11 dead on Deepwater Horizon.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!
Book Mark it-> del.icio.us | Reddit | Slashdot | Digg | Facebook | Technorati | Google | StumbleUpon | Window Live | Tailrank | Furl | Netscape | Yahoo | BlinkListTopics: News |