In 1991, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced its Safety and Environmental Management Program (SEMP) initiative. SEMP consists of a series of integrated management systems designed to improve the ability of U.S. outer continental shelf (OCS) oil and gas facilities to operate in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. Since that time the MMS has worked with industry leaders to promote the voluntary adoption of SEMP by all U.S. OCS operators. Through a series of annual implementation surveys conducted by the American Petroleum Institute (API), it has become clear that the majority of OCS operators have developed and are now implementing their SEMP plans. Given SEMP’s growing maturity, the MMS became interested in finding a way to measure its operational impact. Late in 1996, the MMS, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and offshore industry formed a work group. This group was charged with developing quantitative measures providing insight into the safety, environmental, and regulatory compliance performance of the U.S. OCS oil and gas industry affected by successful implementation of SEMP. Over the course of the next year, the OCS Performance Measures Work Group successfully developed and tested a consensus set of outcome-driven performance measures that include:
The MMS collects or generates over half of the information needed to calculate these measures. The MMS did request, in April 1998, that each OCS operating company voluntarily submit the remaining related information needed to fully compile the OCS Performance Measures. Sixty OCS operators, representing over 80% of total OCS oil and gas production responded to this request. This report documents the collaborative work of the MMS and offshore industry to build and collect information on the OCS Performance Measures. The report also provides the final aggregate results from 1996 and 1997 for each of these measures. Though two data points (i.e., 1996 and 1997) are not enough data to develop trends, they provide an important starting point. Initial results from the OCS Performance Measures have already provided important information not previously available. For example, we can now more accurately predict that between 20,000-25,000 people are working on the OCS at any given moment. Because of the split-shift work schedules used offshore, this means that between 40,000-50,000 people derive their annual livelihood working on the OCS. The results from the 1996-1997 OCS Performance Measures also provide an important starting point for both the MMS and offshore industry to measure bottom-line performance in addition to just regulatory compliance. The data contained in this report will also allow OCS operators and the MMS to more effectively target resources in our individual and collaborative efforts to improve the overall safety, environmental, and regulatory compliance performance of the offshore industry. The overall performance of OCS operators, as shown in the following summary table, is stable or improving in many of the measures; the table also makes clear that there are still many opportunities for improvement.
The data provided by the 1996-1997 survey has already allowed the MMS to identify pacesetting companies in each of the areas measured by the OCS Performance Measures. Pacesetters (both large and small) have been recruited by MMS to share management system approaches they employ to achieve superior performance in upcoming, MMS-industry jointly sponsored best practice sharing workshops. Lastly, the OCS Performance Measures provide a much-needed perspective on the actual safety and environmental performance of OCS operators. Combined with related data on regulatory compliance, the MMS and OCS operators now have important information to help shift to a more performance-driven regulatory program for OCS oil and gas operations.
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