To Louisiana-native Scott Angelle, director of the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, working with the oil industry is personal.
The Houston Chronicle sat down with Angelle earlier this week while he was in Houston meeting with offshore energy companies to discuss safety rules, concerns and best practices.
He previously led the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, including during the BP oil spill in 2010, which killed 11 men and spilled some 3.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
“Since the Macondo event, there’s been a lot of continuous improvements,” Angelle says. “The data shows that when you compare onshore to off, the offshore is clearly the safer industry.”
Angelle’s department oversees a Gulf oil and gas industry that is producing more oil than ever—about 2 million barrels of crude per day—but with far fewer companies and much less drilling activity than in previous decades. He compares the industry, with its high production despite company consolidation, to the retail sector, but he hopes the oil and gas industry will make a strong turnaround.
He points to an announcement made by Chevron last month as a potential tipping point for drilling in the Gulf. The company announced it was moving forward with a $5.7 billion project that would be the first-ever ultra-high-pressure development in the Gulf, thanks to technological advances that allow equipment to handle pressures of 20,000 pounds per square inch. Read the full story.
