Lessons from Recent U.S. Onshore and Offshore Accident Investigations

Abstract

The U.S. oil and gas industry continues to experience major accidents, in spite of many regulatory, industry and company investigations, responses and improvement initiatives. These accidents have involved all segments of the oil and gas value chain – upstream, midstream and downstream – with root causes reaching throughout the project/asset life cycle. This paper will summarize information from a handful of major accidents that have occurred in the U.S. – both onshore and offshore – that have significant learning value. Causal factors, root causes and other common characteristics have been analyzed along with lessons learned. Similarities between these accidents will be highlighted. Organizational factors such as safety culture weaknesses as evident contributors will be discussed. Approaches for eliminating technical, management system, and cultural causal factors will be described so companies can better equip themselves to prevent recurrence of these costly and tragic events in the future for Mexican operations.