A scientific panel is recommending that U.S. offshore drilling companies take a more systematic approach to offshore safety in order to prevent a disaster like the BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico last year.  The recommendations were made by the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. In a new report, the two ag...

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No fatalities were reported after a recent safety incident involving a helicopter that was forced to ditch in the North Sea. There were 19 people on board the helicopter, which crashed into the North Sea while it was on its way from Aberdeen to the West Phoenix semisubmersible. All 19 passengers were rescued, and then taken by helicopter back to...

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The Air Accident Investigations Branch has completed its investigation into an offshore helicopter crash in the North Sea in March 2009 that killed 16 people, including 14 offshore workers and 2 pilots. The report blames the accident on the failure to identify a potential problem in the gearbox just one week before the crash. According to the r...

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An investigation by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement says that a number of violations and deficiencies contributed to the fire on an offshore platform off the coast of Louisiana last year.  According to the investigation, one of the reasons for the fire was the collapse of a tube inside a piece of equipment that ...

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Alabama is suing the federal government over changes to how it calculates royalties from offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The state is attempting to block the changes, which could cost it at least $7.5 million. The lawsuit has been combined with a similar complaint from Louisiana; both cases are pending in federal court in Washington, D....

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Six oil workers were rescued after they were stranded for three days post Tropical Storm Nate in the Gulf of Mexico. The seventh worker, who had been rescued, died in the hospital. Out of the ten workers who were stranded in the Gulf of Mexico, two died and their bodies have been recovered. Search efforts for a missing crewmember are still on. ...

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BP’s safety record is not exactly a secret to the maritime law lawyers at our firm. However, the company’s less-than-stellar record will not be admitted into court during the Deepwater Horizon trial.  The trial will apportion blame for the oil explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, which killed 11 workers. But, the court has disallowed ...

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The Justice Department on Thursday announced that a settlement of $1.4 billion had been reached with Transocean for civil and criminal claims concerning the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout in 2010. An explosion at the oil rig, owned by driller Transocean, left 11 men dead and millions of gallons of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.  Transo...

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From commercial fishing vessel crew members to offshore oil rig workers, all kinds of maritime workers may be at risk of head and brain injuries.  These are some of the most serious injuries, and can leave a person with long lifelong consequences.  A new study confirms yet another one of those long-term effects of a brain injury.  The study sugg...

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A report by Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency reveals that an offshore oil leak near a Chevron well in 2011 could have been prevented and was larger than previously estimated. Previous estimates put the leak at 110,000 gallons, which Chevron says it sticks by. But the Brazilian agency says about 155,000 gallons leaked into the ocean. The repor...

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The man killed in an offshore crane accident on Tuesday has been identified as  20-year-old Brandon Noland.  The Katy resident died at the platform where he was working that morning after a crane collapsed and hit him.  The autopsy released by the medical examiner's office stated that he died of blunt-force trauma from a crushing injury. By fol...

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BP on Saturday completed a subsea mission to determine whether the Deepwater Horizon site is again leaking oil, the U.S. Coast Guard announced today, but the results of the search have yet to be released.  As of Friday, no leak had been found, according to the Coast Guard’s on-scene coordinator, Capt. Duke Walker. Walker said the remotely opera...

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Two chemical tankers collided in the Gulf of Mexico early Wednesday about 70 miles south of Galveston, according to U.S. Coast Guard officials. Both vessels were en route to Houston at the time of the crash. The Chem Sea, a 385-foot tanker, and Bow Kiso, a 557-foot tanker, collided about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday. The double-hulled Bow Kiso, a Panama...

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A Shell Oil drilling ship lost its mooring in Alaska’s Dutch Harbor last week, drifting dangerously close to shore. Despite witness claims, inspections by divers show no evidence that the ship ran aground.  The 571-foot Noble Discoverer is part of the Shell fleet getting ready for exploratory drilling in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi and Bea...

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A body recovered in the Gulf of Mexico may be the worker missing since an explosion on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana on Nov. 16. The Jefferson Parish coroner’s office will use dental records and possibly DNA to determine whether the body is Jerome Malagapo, a Filipino contractor. The body was spotted Monday by crewmembers of a supply ve...

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A crewmember on an offshore supply vessel that ran aground at the Galveston North Jetty last week, sustained injuries, and had to be taken to the hospital. The accident occurred at the Galveston Jetties over the weekend when the offshore supply vessel, the Ashton T ran aground. The 94-foot vessel was carrying about 1,600 gallons of diesel fuel a...

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Despite underwater inspections at the site of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP has failed to identify the source of a persistent oil sheen in the Gulf of Mexico, officials announced Tuesday. Recent inspections confirmed that the Macondo well is secure, both BP and the U.S. Coast Guard said. The well, which blew out in 2010 and poured mi...

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The trial over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill is set to begin this morning in New Orleans before a federal judge, with no jury. Attempts to reach a settlement over the weekend failed, but legal experts expect that one will be reached, at least with the U.S. Department of Justice, within the next few months.  Eleven men were ...

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Even as oil and gas exploration opportunities open up in the state of Alaska and other parts of the world, the Gulf of Mexico is poised to retain its position as one of the biggest petroleum-producing areas of the globe. According to analysts, this region is, in fact, all set to enter the next stages of extended growth, and is expected to conti...

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Alaska oil and gas reserves play a huge part in the federal administration's push to make the United States energy-efficient over the next few years. Exploration activities have already begun in the state, but according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, these efforts have only just scratched the surface of the state’s vast reserves....

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A Hercules Offshore liftboat that was struck by several waterspouts capsized in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana on Friday evening. Five crewmembers aboard the Starfish vessel were evacuated and rescued at sea shortly after the capsizing. They were treated for minor injuries at hospital in Houma, Louisiana, and released. The vessel, a 140-clas...

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Two BP workers have been charged in the deaths of 11 people in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, the highest-ranking BP employees aboard the Deepwater Horizon when the explosion occurred, have been charged with manslaughter, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday. They are accuse...

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Rough weather, including gale-force winds and high waves, prompted Statoil ASA to evacuate by helicopter 336 people from a housing platform in the Norwegian Sea, the second time oil workers have faced serious safety issues since September. The platform offers temporary accommodations for offshore workers. The helicopters evacuated workers 15 at...

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The world's first clinical trial into the use of embryonic stem cells to treat spinal cord injury is continuing in California. Last week, another patient, the first from California, enlisted in the trial. This person has been paralyzed waist down, and is currently undergoing stem cell injection therapy at the Santa Clara Medical Valley Center. ...

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Canada's offshore drilling industry expects to see limited growth over the next year, because of a shortage of qualified and skilled oil workers. According to the Canadian Association of Oil Well Drilling Contractors, the shortage of experienced workers is a major impediment to the expansion of drilling activities.  The Association says that it...

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All crew members on an offshore oil platform operated by Petroleos Mexicano have been evacuated after a fire raged through the platform last week. There were approximately 213 workers on the KU-S platform in the Ku Maloob Zaap field in the Bay of Campeche. This is Mexico's largest oil producing field, and for several years now has been a source...

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Ever since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, maritime law attorneys have found Transocean and BP battling over liability and damages. A judge has ruled that Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, does not have to pay any compensatory damages arising out of the marine pollution that resulted after the disaste...

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Four people have been confirmed dead in an offshore helicopter crash off the coast of Brazil.  The helicopter had just taken off from a drilling platform located in the Atlantic Ocean when it crashed killing a pilot, co-pilot and two subcontractors.  The platform was operated by Brazilian company, Petrobras.  According to news accounts, the pil...

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Three more dive boats have joined the search for a contractor still missing after an explosion Friday on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. The U.S. Coast Guard called off its search, but the company that owns the rig, Houston-based Black Elk Energy Company, continued to look for the missing worker.  One worker has been confirmed dead after...

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The United States Coast Guard has completed investigations of violations on board a Royal Dutch Shell drill ship off the coast of Alaska, and has handed over its findings to the Department Of Justice. The investigation has found numerous safety violations on the Noble Discoverer. The inspections came to light only after the drilling season, whe...

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The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has laid much of the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil explosion last year on BP. However, Transocean, the owner of the rig, and Halliburton, which did much of the cementing work on the vessel, have not been spared blame either. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation an...

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The former head of the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said last week that an increase in “complacency” since the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening the changes in safety regulations and government oversight that resulted from the incident.  Michael Bromwich, speaking at a National Press Club ev...

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An oil platform operated by Royal Dutch Shell in the North Sea has been partially evacuated after detection of a gas leak. There were a total of 76 crew members on the Gannett Alpha platform operated by Shell in the North Sea. Out of these, 48 members were evacuated, and returned to shore by helicopter. According to Shell, the problem came to l...

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A final set of federal safety regulations were issued last week for offshore drilling. The rules are a fine-tuning of the emergency measures enacted after the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill. The rules deal with how wells are designed and the testing of the cement and barriers that are used to secure them. The go...

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A Coast Guard helicopter crew medically evacuated a man from a tanker in the Gulf of Mexico on Feb. 3 after he was struck by a crane while working on deck. The 435-foot Stolt Flamenco was about 50 miles southeast of the Texas-Mexico border when the Filipino man was struck and lost feeling in the lower half of his body. The Coast Guard Sector Co...

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An important piece of offshore safety legislation that would have clearly defined how drilling safety plans in US waters should progress, is currently left hanging after lawmakers disagreed over revenue sharing payments to states.  The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was debating legislation that would enhance offshore drilling sa...

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A worker on an oil rig owned by Brazil's national oil and gas agency has been killed in a fall accident. According to Brazilian state-controlled Petrobras, the accident occurred last week on the PUB-03 oil rig, which is located in the Rio Grande do Norte in the northeastern part of the country. The worker and two of his colleagues fell on the d...

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BP has agreed to plead guilty to felony charges, as well as pay $4.5 billion in penalties, in relation to the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion that left 11 workers dead and resulted in a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The oil giant announced it would plead guilty to 11 felony counts of “misconduct or neglect of ships officers” in ...

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In the future, offshore oil rigs may be safer because pipes are manufactured with safer materials, thanks to research at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology who are currently using car crash test software to predict pipe fractures. Offshore drilling pipes may be subjected to extreme pressure as they travel deep into the ocean, and require...

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Chevron Corp. officials said 2 workers were missing after a rig off Nigeria’s coast caught fire Monday. The company said that 152 workers had been found, but officials were still accounting for all those working on the offshore rig, which was exploring possible deep-water oil and gas fields. The cause of the fire was still under investigation,...

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Offshore safety regulators in the United Kingdom have made what offshore injury lawyers believe is a major mistake, under pressure from drilling companies. The Health and Safety Executive, which is responsible for safety regulations in the North Sea has lightened the rules for reporting of offshore oil and gas drilling accidents. The announceme...

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A judge has handed plaintiffs, who sustained losses during the BP oil rig explosion last year, a huge victory.  He has ruled that BP can indeed be sued for punitive damages.  According to Judge Carl Barbier plaintiffs are allowed under maritime law to make a claim for punitive damages. BP, Transocean and other defendants have insisted that puni...

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The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is conducting an investigation into the BP explosion and oil spill last year. The investigation is being conducted at the request of Congress. The investigation is still on, but according to the New York Times, the board has found that lax federal offshore safety regulatory standards were re...

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Just a few days after the disastrous fire on board a shallow water offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the federal administration has issued a subpoena to Houston-based Black Elk Energy. The subpoena has been issued by the US Chemical Safety Board, which is seeking details about Black Elk Energy’s safety and environmental management strate...

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Royal Dutch Shell is trying to defend its offshore safety record, after attacks by environmental safety groups over a leak from a Shell platform in the North Sea. Shell has confirmed that it has managed to plug the leak from its Gannet Alpha platform, which is located just 112 miles off Aberdeen, Scotland. The leak resulted in more than 200 ton...

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Although preliminary work began Sunday on an exploratory drill 70 miles off the coast of Alaska, a giant block of floating ice was delaying any further work from continuing. A Royal Dutch Shell petroleum drill ship had begun the first drilling in U.S. Chukchi waters since 1991 but was forced to stop after only hours and move away to wait for an...

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A judge’s approval of $7.8 billion class-action lawsuit against BP for damages from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill is being appealed by more than 10,000 individuals and businesses. The company agreed in March to a settlement of an estimated $7.8 billion for most private plaintiff’s claims of economic loss, property damage and injuries stemmi...

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A bill introduced in the US House of Representatives would require rescue boats to be stationed within three nautical miles of offshore oil and gas drilling rigs.  The measure has been sponsored by Louisiana Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia. According to him, the proposal aims to find a common sense approach to the safety problems facing the offs...

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Offshore oil industry workers in Canada now have access to greater and more improved helicopter crash survival training. The Marine Institute has announced newly improved facilities for workers in the country's offshore industry. The Offshore Safety and Survival Center located in Foxtrap, Canada has invested in new survival equipment that is me...

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A Shell oil rig that ran aground on an Alaskan island last week during stormy weather finally reached safe harbor Monday. The rig, which was pulled from a towing ship last week and grounded on the shore of Sitkalidak Island, will be checked out to determine its seaworthiness. No signs of breaches were found on the Kulluk’s fuel tanks. The drill...

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Most personnel on board the floating hotel rig, the Floatel Superior in the Norwegian Continental Shelf had to be evacuated after the discovery of a damaged ballast tank recently. The workers woke up in the early hours of the morning to the news that they would have to conduct an emergency evacuation of the rig because of the discovery of a lea...

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While assisting in running pipeline on a platform off the coast of Mexico in 2010, a 40-year-old welder was injured when his hand was caught in a snatch pulley. The man suffered partial severing to 8 fingers and an injury to his right shoulder. The incident occurred when the worker was securing a cable that ran through a 36-inch pipeline. Witho...

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A British Petroleum executive is defending a report on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in federal court in New Orleans today. Mark Bly was in charge of the company’s investigation into the explosion that killed 11 people and sent millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the fourth day of testimony. The civil trial ...

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Globs of oil found on two Louisiana beaches after Hurrican Isaac has been confirmed as coming from the 2010 BP oil spill. Louisiana State University tested the oil, found on Elmer’s Island and Grand Isle, for state wildlife officials. It was found to match the biological fingerprint of the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spilled into...

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Royal Dutch Shell announced today after a series of delays and setbacks that it was holding off until next year in its efforts to drill into oil and gas deposits in the Arctic offshore. In the latest delay, the company’s high-tech dome, which is designed to contain oil should an underwater spill happen, was damaged during a test. Shell said it ...

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A coalition of environmental groups from five states filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court claiming the Environmental Protection Agency rules on chemical dispersants used in oil spill cleanups do not adhere to clean water standards. The lawsuit says the EPA has not published regulations on acceptable use of such dispersants in response to oil...

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A Shell oil rig that ran aground last week has been cited by the U.S. EPA for violating nine conditions of its air-quality permit while drilling in the waters off Alaska, according to a letter issued by the agency Thursday. The findings are the latest in a string of setbacks for the company’s much-debated $5 billion Arctic drilling plans. The K...

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The search has been halted for a contractor missing after an explosion on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. The worker had been missing since Friday.  Jerome Malagapo, of the Philippines, was an employee of Grand Isle Shipyard Inc. and was working as a contractor on the rig, owned by Houston-based Black Elk Energy. One worker was confirmed...

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U.S. authorities have ordered that defective components on subsea equipment on several oil rigs currently operating in the Gulf of Mexico be inspected, because of possibly dangerous consequences. At least 24 oil rigs are believed to be equipped with the faulty component, a bolt which connects blowout preventers manufactured by a General Electri...

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Oil and gas crews are getting back to work in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Isaac passed. The storm has reportedly caused only minor damage to rigs and platforms. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said Monday that more than 58 percent of daily oil production and 39 percent of daily natural gas production in the Gulf is sti...

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BP is beginning the fifth day of a subsea mission, under U.S. Coast Guard supervision, to search for possible oil leaks from the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, according to reports. The oil rig explosion in 2010 killed 11 workers and leaked more than 7 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over three months before it was finall...

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Oil and gas exploration company Apache Corporation has announced that it managed to prevent a possibly disastrous well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico recently.  According to the company, it identified an “abnormally pressured gas zone” during drilling operations conducted in the shallow water Main Pass 295 in the Gulf Of Mexico. The problem was ...

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Seven crew members, including six Russians and one Estonian, were kidnapped from an offshore support vessel off the coast of Nigeria after it was boarded by gunmen. Bourbon Offshore, the owner of the attacked vessel, confirmed that nine other crewmembers were still aboard the Bourbon Liberty 249 and in good health. The Paris-based company is in...

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A Brazilian court has barred several employees of Chevron and Transocean from leaving the country, even as law enforcement officers in the country prepare to file criminal charges against them. The charges are related to an offshore spill involving the company. Last week, the Brazilian Navy reported that a new oil sheen was detected at the oilf...

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A worker on an offshore platform in the Gulf Of Mexico had to be airlifted after he suffered injuries in an accident.  According to the Coast Guard, the man was injured on a platform located about 55 miles southwest of Marsh Island. Crewmembers contacted the Coast Guard Sector New Orleans to alert them that a man on board had suffered serious f...

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There are a number of dangers that an offshore oil rig worker is exposed to, and one of these is the risk that a worker faces every time he takes a helicopter flight to or from an oil rig or platform. Offshore oil workers make frequent trips between shore and land, and these trips are not without their dangers. Last week, nine passengers on an ...

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Last Friday, a U.S. judge gave the final approval to BP’s settlement with individuals and businesses who lost money and property as a result of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that followed the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The settlement addressed only issues of economic and property damage claims and did not separate medical benefits s...

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One of the factors that ultimately contributed to the deadly Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion last year was the lack of adequate inspection and oversight by the federal administration.  Currently, lone inspectors are sent for inspections of oil rigs.  That could soon change, with the federal administration announcing that from now on, teams o...

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The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has been strongly focused on increasing offshore worker safety and preventing accidents like the Gulf of Mexico BP explosion last year.  The agency has had its work cut out for it, as it struggles to deal with years of ineptitude, negligence and inappropriate relationships between...

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Four people have been confirmed dead in an offshore helicopter crash off the coast of Brazil.  The helicopter had just taken off from a drilling platform located in the Atlantic Ocean when it crashed killing a pilot, co-pilot and two subcontractors. The platform was operated by Brazilian company, Petrobras.  According to news accounts, the pilo...

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A crane collapsed while loading equipment onto a work boat, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement report.  On Tuesday, August 16, 2011, the boom hoist cable failed, killing one worker on the site in the Gulf of Mexico.  The platform, owned by Energy Resource Technology, is now the site of an investigation...

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A commercial diver who was working 242 feet underwater in the North Sea survived for 38 minutes on just his emergency air tank after his air supply line was snagged and severed. The diver, Chris Lemons, had fallen unconscious by the time colleagues found him and pulled him to safety. He was revived and made a full recovery after decompression t...

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A Filipino oil worker died as a result of injuries sustained in the Nov. 16 explosion on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana, the second fatality in the incident. One man is still missing and three remain in serious condition after suffering major burns in the blast.  The U.S. Department of Interior has called on Black Elk Energy Offshore Ope...

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Millions of pounds of unexploded bombs deposited in the Gulf of Mexico after World War II are posing a threat to offshore drilling, Texas oceanographers say. The United States and other governments disposed of munitions and chemical weapons in the oceans until the practice was banned by federal law and international treaties in the 1970s. Now, ...

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A body thought to be one of two workers missing after an explosion on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana was recovered late Saturday night, and the search for another missing worker was continuing. The two workers jumped off the platform into the Gulf of Mexico after the rig exploded Friday. The U.S. Coast Guard had suspended its search for ...

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Royal Dutch Shell is again at the receiving end of criticism by the official Norwegian petroleum agency, for failures related to the safety of load-bearing structures on its Norwegian Sea platform. The Draugen platform is a concrete-based facility in the Norwegian Sea. According to the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority, it has investigated t...

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The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that BP is suspended from entering into new contracts with the United States government for its actions during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  "EPA is taking this action due to BP's lack of business integrity as demonstrated by the company's conduct wi...

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