Government must improve offshore exploration safety

On the eve of the first anniver­sary of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon dis­as­ter the EPMU and MUNZ say the Key gov­ern­ment must apply lessons from it and the Pike Riv­er tragedy and act with­out delay to ensure work­ers have a stronger voice in off­shore oil explo­ration safe­ty, includ­ing com­pre­hen­sive “safe­ty case” and legal lia­bil­i­ty pro­vi­sions [1].

The gov­ern­ment also needs to leg­is­late for best inter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards and prac­tices, enforce them effec­tive­ly by increas­ing the num­ber of inspec­tors and remove legal uncer­tain­ties about com­pa­nies’ insur­ance lia­bil­i­ty oblig­a­tions.

“The Pike Riv­er and Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon tragedies were reminders that work­place safe­ty is not nego­tiable,” says Andrew Lit­tle, joint spokesman for the NZ sec­tion of the Trans Tas­man Oil & Gas Alliance (TTOGA) of trade unions.

“New Zealand deserves the strictest lev­els of safe­ty, acci­dent pre­ven­tion and response, and a com­pre­hen­sive envi­ron­men­tal safe­guards regime in its Exclu­sive Eco­nom­ic Zone (EEZ), and a ded­i­cat­ed res­cue ves­sel, with­out com­pro­mise or incon­sis­ten­cy.”

“Too often the free mar­ket cul­ture says ‘increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and make more prof­it’ but this deval­ues the work­er’s voice on health and safe­ty issues which isn’t good enough.”

“It’s also about a sen­si­ble recog­ni­tion that some indus­tries are inher­ent­ly dan­ger­ous, such as oil, gas and min­ing, and peo­ple work­ing in them are enti­tled to the best pos­si­ble pro­tec­tions going.”

“New Zealand has only one inspec­tor over­see­ing safe­ty in off­shore oil explo­ration, which is a grave con­cern after the Pike Riv­er and Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon tragedies.”

“The gov­ern­ment sim­ply must increase the lev­el of health and safe­ty staffing and mon­i­tor­ing in the most haz­ardous sec­tors such as oil, gas and min­ing.”

“A sin­gle Depart­ment of Labour oil well inspec­tor mon­i­tors health and safe­ty at sev­en New Zealand instal­la­tions and is sup­posed to be guard­ing against dis­as­ters such as the rig explo­sion that killed 11 work­ers on the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon in the Gulf of Mex­i­co last year.”

“Aus­tralia has one inspec­tor for every three instal­la­tions, Britain has one for every two and Nor­way has one per instal­la­tion. Yet the sole New Zealand inspec­tor is respon­si­ble for sev­en instal­la­tions as well as all onshore petro­le­um and geot­her­mal activ­i­ties, which beg­gars belief.”

“The Depart­ment of Labour inspec­torate needs more inspec­tors and sup­port staff to bring the lev­el here in line with Nor­way where they have one for each instal­la­tion.”

[1] The Engi­neer­ing, Print­ing and Man­u­fac­tur­ing Union (EPMU) rep­re­sents work­ers in the oil, gas and min­ing sec­tors and the Mar­itime Union of NZ (MUNZ) rep­re­sents work­ers in the mar­itime and ship­ping sec­tors. Togeth­er they are the NZ sec­tion of the Trans Tas­man Oil & Gas Alliance (TTOGA).