Oversight, assessment of risk and management: Part 2
In my last post I began looking at risk management and would like to elaborate further and see how this applies to shipping, the offshore oil industry, and particularly oil spills? Continue reading
Oversight, assessment of risk and management: please don’t shoot the regulators
Do you recognize the name Oswald Grübel? Mr. Grübel was until recently CEO of the Swiss Banking Group UBS. Continue reading
What do oil spills, piracy and the Greek crisis have in common?
There are at least three “received truths”, as one of my college professors sarcastically called them, that, in the world of shipping, may be open to challenge. One is that last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion had nothing to do with the rest of the shipping industry, being only about wells and rigs — and not ships Continue reading
A blog from Washington
I have been in Washington, DC for the past few days, watching the legal and political reaction to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I would say that the clearest lesson to be drawn from the reaction of the U. S. government is that techniques for the extraction of oil at great oceanic depth are more advanced than those for the prevention of leaks or blowouts, as well as response and remediation afterward.
Closely associated with this lesson is a growing awareness that risk exists. It must be managed; and most important, it must be planned for, and be adequately funded. The Gulf of Mexico blowout demonstrates how costly failure can be.
For the future, hydrocarbon extraction… Continue reading