IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v74y2014icp443-453.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reforming Brazil׳s offshore oil and gas safety regulatory framework: Lessons from Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Mendes, Pietro A.S.
  • Hall, Jeremy
  • Matos, Stelvia
  • Silvestre, Bruno

Abstract

We propose reforming the Brazilian regulatory safety framework (BRSF) for offshore oil and gas production and drilling operations. Brazil has emerged as a leading offshore producer with extensive proven reserves yet to be exploited. However, the BRSF has not been updated since 2007, and there are now major concerns about the industry׳s safety, particularly after the BP Deepwater Horizon accident, along with the technical challenges due to extreme conditions under which Brazil׳s resources are located. Drawing on experiences from three leading offshore oil and gas producers (Norway, the UK, and the US), we recommend the adoption of three best practices: the UK׳s ‘safety case’ approach (where operators are expected to provide convincing and valid arguments that a system is sufficiently safe for a given application in a specific environment), Norway׳s ‘barrier management’ (evidence that there are at least two tested and independent barriers to avoid accidents) and greater investment in safety research and development, as suggested by the US׳s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. We discuss implications for policy reform and how best practices can be applied within the Brazilian context.

Suggested Citation

  • Mendes, Pietro A.S. & Hall, Jeremy & Matos, Stelvia & Silvestre, Bruno, 2014. "Reforming Brazil׳s offshore oil and gas safety regulatory framework: Lessons from Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 443-453.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:74:y:2014:i:c:p:443-453
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.08.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514004674
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.08.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Magrini, Alessandra & Lins, Luiz dos Santos, 2007. "Integration between environmental management and strategic planning in the oil and gas sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 4869-4878, October.
    2. Amobi, Marilyn Chikaodili, 2007. "Deregulating the electricity industry in Nigeria: Lessons from the British reform," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 291-304, December.
    3. Mani, Swaminathan & Dhingra, Tarun, 2013. "Offshore wind energy policy for India—Key factors to be considered," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 672-683.
    4. de Oliveira, Jose Antonio Puppim, 2003. "Understanding organizational and institutional changes for management of environmental affairs in the Brazilian petroleum sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 113-121, June.
    5. Dantas, Eva & Bell, Martin, 2009. "Latecomer firms and the emergence and development of knowledge networks: The case of Petrobras in Brazil," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 829-844, June.
    6. Catherine Co, 2014. "Chinese contractors in developing countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(1), pages 149-171, February.
    7. do Valle Costa, Claudia & La Rovere, Emilio & Assmann, Dirk, 2008. "Technological innovation policies to promote renewable energies: Lessons from the European experience for the Brazilian case," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 65-90, January.
    8. Muehlenbachs, Lucija & Cohen, Mark A. & Gerarden, Todd, 2013. "The impact of water depth on safety and environmental performance in offshore oil and gas production," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 699-705.
    9. Shirali, Gh.A. & Mohammadfam, I. & Ebrahimipour, V., 2013. "A new method for quantitative assessment of resilience engineering by PCA and NT approach: A case study in a process industry," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 88-94.
    10. Borba, Bruno S.M.C. & Lucena, André F.P. & Rathmann, Régis & Costa, Isabella V.L. & Nogueira, Larissa P.P. & Rochedo, Pedro R.R. & Castelo Branco, David A. & Júnior, Mauricio F.H. & Szklo, Alexandre &, 2012. "Energy-related climate change mitigation in Brazil: Potential, abatement costs and associated policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 430-441.
    11. Filippini, Roberto & Silva, Andrés, 2014. "A modeling framework for the resilience analysis of networked systems-of-systems based on functional dependencies," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 82-91.
    12. Goldemberg, José & Schaeffer, Roberto & Szklo, Alexandre & Lucchesi, Rodrigo, 2014. "Oil and natural gas prospects in South America: Can the petroleum industry pave the way for renewables in Brazil?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 58-70.
    13. How Sing Sii & Jin Wang & Tom Ruxton, 2003. "A statistical review of the risk associated with offshore support vessel/platform encounters in UK waters," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 163-177, March.
    14. Gomes, Jose O. & Woods, David D. & Carvalho, Paulo V.R. & Huber, Gilbert J. & Borges, Marcos R.S., 2009. "Resilience and brittleness in the offshore helicopter transportation system: The identification of constraints and sacrifice decisions in pilots’ work," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 311-319.
    15. Kashani, Hossein A., 2006. "A problem of incentive compatibility in the North Sea petroleum industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1032-1045, June.
    16. Szklo, Alexandre & Machado, Giovani & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2007. "Future oil production in Brazil--Estimates based on a Hubbert model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2360-2367, April.
    17. Skogdalen, Jon Espen & Vinnem, Jan Erik, 2012. "Quantitative risk analysis of oil and gas drilling, using Deepwater Horizon as case study," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 58-66.
    18. Paz Antolín, María José & Ramírez Cendrero, Juan Manuel, 2013. "How important are national companies for oil and gas sector performance? Lessons from the Bolivia and Brazil case studies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 707-716.
    19. Harsem, Øistein & Eide, Arne & Heen, Knut, 2011. "Factors influencing future oil and gas prospects in the Arctic," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 8037-8045.
    20. Karovic Maricic, Vesna & Danilovic, Dusan & Lekovic, Branko, 2012. "Serbian oil sector: A new energy policy regulatory framework and development strategies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 312-322.
    21. Jeremy Hall & Stelvia Matos & Lorn Sheehan & Bruno Silvestre, 2012. "Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid: A Recipe for Inclusive Growth or Social Exclusion?," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 785-812, June.
    22. Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2008. "The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907-2007," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1802-1820, May.
    23. Rick S. Kurtz, 2013. "Oil Spill Causation and the Deepwater Horizon Spill," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 30(4), pages 366-380, July.
    24. Perrons, Robert K. & Richards, Matthew G., 2013. "Applying maintenance strategies from the space and satellite sector to the upstream oil and gas industry: A research agenda," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 60-64.
    25. Coelho, Suani T. & Goldemberg, José, 2013. "Energy access: Lessons learned in Brazil and perspectives for replication in other developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1088-1096.
    26. Moreira, Jose R. & Pacca, Sergio A. & Parente, Virginia, 2014. "The future of oil and bioethanol in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 7-15.
    27. Thurber, Mark C. & Hults, David R. & Heller, Patrick R.P., 2011. "Exporting the "Norwegian Model": The effect of administrative design on oil sector performance," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5366-5378, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gomes Relva, Stefania & Oliveira da Silva, Vinícius & Peyerl, Drielli & Veiga Gimenes, André Luiz & Molares Udaeta, Miguel Edgar, 2020. "Regulating the electro-energetic use of natural gas by gas-to-wire offshore technology: Case study from Brazil," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Silvestre, Bruno S., 2015. "Sustainable supply chain management in emerging economies: Environmental turbulence, institutional voids and sustainability trajectories," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 156-169.
    3. Theophilus, Stephen C. & Esenowo, Victor N. & Arewa, Andrew O. & Ifelebuegu, Augustine O. & Nnadi, Ernest O. & Mbanaso, Fredrick U., 2017. "Human factors analysis and classification system for the oil and gas industry (HFACS-OGI)," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 168-176.
    4. Rafael Henrique Mainardes Ferreira & Claudia Tania Picinin, 2018. "Bibliometric analysis for characterization of oil production in Brazilian territory," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1945-1974, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. de Aguiar, Thereza R.S. & Freire, Fatima de Souza, 2017. "Shifts in modes of governance and sustainable development in the Brazilian oil sector," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 701-710.
    2. Postic, Sebastien & Selosse, Sandrine & Maïzi, Nadia, 2017. "Energy contribution to Latin American INDCs: Analyzing sub-regional trends with a TIMES model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 170-184.
    3. Novak, Jeremy & Farr-Wharton, Ben & Brunetto, Yvonne & Shacklock, Kate & Brown, Kerry, 2017. "Safety outcomes for engineering asset management organizations: Old problem with new solutions?," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 67-73.
    4. Botelho, Tatiana & Magrini, Alessandra & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2014. "Plumbing the depths: Utilizing O&G reserve profiles to develop forward-looking risk assessments for exploration and production activities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 489-500.
    5. Bergström, Johan & van Winsen, Roel & Henriqson, Eder, 2015. "On the rationale of resilience in the domain of safety: A literature review," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 131-141.
    6. Kumar, Sourabh & Kumar Barua, Mukesh, 2022. "Modeling and investigating the interaction among risk factors of the sustainable petroleum supply chain," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Ali Azadeh & Mansoureh Hasannia Kolaee & Vahid Salehi, 2016. "The impact of redundancy on resilience engineering in a petrochemical plant by data envelopment analysis," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 230(3), pages 285-296, June.
    8. Fátima Lima & Joana Portugal‐Pereira & André F.P. Lucena & Pedro Rochedo & Jorge Cunha & Manuel Lopes Nunes & Alexandre Salem Szklo, 2015. "Analysis of energy security and sustainability in future low carbon scenarios for Brazil," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(3-4), pages 175-190, August.
    9. Fábio T. F. Silva & Alexandre Szklo & Amanda Vinhoza & Ana Célia Nogueira & André F. P. Lucena & Antônio Marcos Mendonça & Camilla Marcolino & Felipe Nunes & Francielle M. Carvalho & Isabela Tagomori , 2022. "Inter-sectoral prioritization of climate technologies: insights from a Technology Needs Assessment for mitigation in Brazil," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 27(7), pages 1-39, October.
    10. Siler-Evans, Kyle & Hanson, Alex & Sunday, Cecily & Leonard, Nathan & Tumminello, Michele, 2014. "Analysis of pipeline accidents in the United States from 1968 to 2009," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 257-269.
    11. Mario Pansera & Fabien Martinez, 2017. "Innovation for development and poverty reduction: an integrative literature review," Post-Print hal-02887777, HAL.
    12. Machacek, Erika & Fold, Niels, 2014. "Alternative value chains for rare earths: The Anglo-deposit developers," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 53-64.
    13. Cai, Xiaomei & Liu, Chan & Zheng, Shuxian & Hu, Han & Tan, Zhanglu, 2023. "Analysis on the evolution characteristics of barite international trade pattern based on complex networks," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    14. Charles Sabel & Gary Herrigel & Peer Hull Kristensen, 2018. "Regulation under uncertainty: The coevolution of industry and regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(3), pages 371-394, September.
    15. Sarah Maslen & Jan Hayes & Janice Wong & Christina Scott-Young, 2020. "Witch hunts and scapegoats: an investigation into the impact of personal liability concerns on engineers’ reporting of risks," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 413-426, September.
    16. Francis, Royce & Bekera, Behailu, 2014. "A metric and frameworks for resilience analysis of engineered and infrastructure systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 90-103.
    17. de Carvalho, Paulo Victor Rodrigues, 2011. "The use of Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) in a mid-air collision to understand some characteristics of the air traffic management system resilience," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1482-1498.
    18. Murshed, Muntasir, 2019. "Trade Liberalization Policies and Renewable Energy Transition in Low and Middle-Income Countries? An Instrumental Variable Approach," MPRA Paper 97075, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Magrini, Alessandra & Lins, Luiz dos Santos, 2007. "Integration between environmental management and strategic planning in the oil and gas sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 4869-4878, October.
    20. Paola Perez-Aleman & Tommaso Ferretti, 2023. "Creating innovation capabilities for improving global health: Inventing technology for neglected tropical diseases in Brazil," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 84-114, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:74:y:2014:i:c:p:443-453. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.