Precursor Analysis for Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling: From Prescriptive to Risk-Informed Regulation

Roger Cooke, Heather L. Ross () and Adam Stern ()
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Heather L. Ross: Resources for the Future
Adam Stern: Resources for the Future

RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: The Oil Spill Commission’s chartered mission—to “develop options to guard against … any oil spills associated with offshore drilling in the future” (National Commission 2010)—presents a major challenge: how to reduce the risk of low-frequency oil spill events, and especially high-consequence events like the Deepwater Horizon accident, when historical experience contains few oil spills of material scale and none approaching the significance of the Deepwater Horizon. In this paper, we consider precursor analysis as an answer to this challenge, addressing first its development and use in nuclear reactor regulation and then its applicability to offshore oil and gas drilling. We find that the nature of offshore drilling risks, the operating information obtainable by the regulator, and the learning curve provided by 30 years of nuclear experience make precursor analysis a promising option available to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) to bring cost-effective, risk-informed oversight to bear on the threat of catastrophic oil spills.

Keywords: catastrophic oil spills; quantitative risk analysis; risk-informed regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-01-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-reg
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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