A Commitment to Offshore Safety
Mark Green
Posted July 21, 2014
The recent International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC) in Savannah, Ga., underscored the oil and natural gas industry’s continuing commitment to safe energy development – using new technologies and deployed expertise to quickly and appropriately respond in the event of an accidental spill.
Below, check out a new video featuring conference attendees, talking about IOSC’s valuable role in bringing together experts, service providers and government officials in the broad effort to keep improving the safety of offshore oil and natural gas development:
Worth repeating – AIS’ Michele Finn:
“The main attraction is in the very first word of the title – international. You get a lot of different perspectives, you learn a little bit more about threats you never even had thought about before and you can share lessons learned on different activities with people throughout the world. And I think in the end that’s just going to make our response posture better globally.”
Economies all over the world run on oil and natural gas, much of it developed offshore, and public support for this development is critical. Americans – as well as citizens in other countries – rightly expect exploration, production and delivery to be safe and environmentally responsible, which is the point of IOSC and its sister conferences. From API President and CEO Jack Gerard’s speech at IOSC:
“In order to achieve our nation’s full potential as a global energy leader all of us have to work together to ensure that our energy infrastructure is capable of safely, reliably and efficiently transporting ever-increasing amounts of domestically produced energy, whether by truck, barge, pipeline or railcar. The oil and natural gas industry’s ability to keep leading job creation in this country and driving the 21st century North American energy renaissance is directly tied to how safely and reliably we develop our nation’s energy resources. Because, how well our industry responds to the infrequent, but usually highly publicized incidents is what drives public perception and impacts regulators’ confidence in our ability to safely manage our nation’s game-changing energy resources.”
About The Author
Mark Green joined API after a career in newspaper journalism, including 16 years as national editorial writer for The Oklahoman in the paper’s Washington bureau. Previously, Mark was a reporter, copy editor and sports editor at an assortment of newspapers. He earned his journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma and master’s in journalism and public affairs from American University. He and his wife Pamela have two grown children and six grandchildren.