Clay Maitland

On a quest for quality in shipping

Oil and the artic: The maritime part of a high-stakes tug of war

The complexity of how oil gets produced involves exploration, development, technology, maritime transport, pipelines and lots and lots of money. And politics. Continue reading

Running the risk

So this week, I'm in Hamburg for the bi-annual shipbuilding and ship machinery behemoth that is SMM and have been kindly asked by Jochen Deerberg to speak at his new environmental conference that runs parallel to the exhibition. Continue reading

The trial lawyers’ payday comes to the Bayou

As an American lawyer, my heart rate naturally goes up when I think about large-scale litigation. My professional pride also swells to see that our legendary legal ingenuity is not a thing of the past. Continue reading

Shout a little less

mikethumbI suppose with half a million tons of oil so far ejected into the Gulf of Mexico one is entitled to feel pretty angry with the response. Just as long as it is flowing, nobody will ever have done enough to mitigate its effects. Continue reading

Planning for next time: Matching resources with reality

Nostalgia, as the saying goes, isn't what it used to be. Reminiscence is kinder; when we look back, in the mellow afterglow of selective memory, it often seems that everything either went according to plan or, at any rate, went just as we said it would. Hindsight is more rigourous. It means examining, understanding and learning from experience. Continue reading

Getting serious about risk management?

The Gulf of Mexico postmortems are landing with explosive force, even if the well has not yet been sealed. At what Churchill liked to call the root of the matter, there wasan inability to appreciate and apply a safety or risk management system to the drilling and operation of at least some exploratory and production wells on the U. S. outer continental shelf. Continue reading

Quote and unquote

When Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is quoted - again and again - for having said "never allow a good crisis to go to waste", we're driven to grub through memory's attic for other appropriate one-liners, adaptable for oil spill bloggery. Continue reading

A troubled political legacy

One of the oldest sayings in the US Congress is: "There is no such thing as a good regulatory outcome". Continue reading

Thinking constructively about oil spill prevention

Since April 20, the oil and tanker industries have been confronted with the realization that the rules of risk management, and the framework of maritime liability, are being altered in many ways. Continue reading

Food for thought at SOS

The shipping panel at the Sustainable Ocean Summit was typically catholic blend: trade bodies for shipping and carbon capture, a drillship operator, oil major and engine-maker. Continue reading
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