The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) announced a $5 million, five-year agreement to establish the Ocean Energy Safety Institute (Institute) in Texas. The University of Texas at Austin has been selected as one of three university partners in the Institute.
The Institute will provide a forum for dialogue, shared learning and cooperative research among academia, government, industry and other non-government organizations in offshore-related technologies and activities that help ensure environmentally safe and responsible offshore operations.
The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station’s (TEES) Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center has been selected to manage the Institute. TEES is partnering with Texas A&M University, The University of Texas at Austin and University of Houston.
“The creation of the Ocean Energy Safety Institute is critical to preserving our water resources, and meeting our nation’s energy demands,” said Tad Patzek, chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering and co-PI of the Institute. “With the largest oil industry presence in the country, Texas is the ideal location for the institute. We are armed with an abundance of knowledge and research on the subject. UT Austin looks forward to working closely with our university partners, as well as government and industry to delineate our priorities and set important operational procedures.”
The Institute stems from a recommendation from the Ocean Energy Safety Advisory Committee, a federal advisory group comprised of representatives from industry, federal government agencies, non-governmental organizations and the academic community. The Institute will be an important source of unbiased, independent information and will not have any regulatory authority over the offshore industry. It will be a collaborative venture that will also include involvement on science and technology issues from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
“I look forward to working closely with our partners at the Institute on finding ways to improve safety offshore,” said BSEE Director Brian Salerno. “The Institute will develop a program of research, technical assistance and education that serves as a center of expertise in offshore oil and gas exploration, development and production technology, including frontier areas, such as high temperature/high pressure reservoirs, deepwater, and Arctic exploration and development.”
The Institute will provide recommendations and technical assistance to BSEE related to emerging technologies and the best available and safest technologies (BAST). In addition, it will develop and maintain an equipment failure monitoring system and train federal employees to enable them to remain current on state-of-the-art technology. The Institute will also promote collaboration among federal agencies, industry, standards organizations, academia, and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Information on issues related to offshore research and best practices will be shared with industry, government, and the public through Institute held forums.
