Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

This morning I met Iain Conn, the chief executive of refining and marketing for BP, who is on the board of BP. He gave me a very clear picture, which has been developing over time. Seven safeguards failed, so it was a most exceptional accident. As the noble Lord rightly said, the concrete casing and the blow-out preventer failed, but another five things should have locked in to prevent that happening. It is remarkable that all those safeguards should have failed. Clearly, the finger of blame will be pointed in all sorts of directions but I do not think that that will help to solve the current problem. We will doubtless be left with the presidential inquiry, which will take place afterwards. Our own OSPRAG group will review that and ensure that lessons are strongly learnt.

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, first, I declare my interest as a non-executive director of Rowan Drilling, a US-based shallow-water jack-up drilling company. I was one of the Energy Ministers responsible for implementing the recommendations emanating from the Piper Alpha disaster, and I congratulate the Minister on immediately undertaking a review of the UKCS operating and drilling activity. Will he ensure that the safety case regime is at the heart of that review? Will he also reflect that the response by the British Government to the Piper Alpha disaster was measured and constructive, without emotive political rhetoric from either side of the House, and underwritten by seamless, calm and reasoned collaboration between the British Government, their agencies and the American operators in the North Sea? Does he agree that that is the most effective response, however tragic the human and environmental consequences?

[Lord Marland]

I thank my noble friend Lord Moynihan for his comments; again, it is very useful to have the input of someone who has experience in this field. I well remember the Piper Alpha incident and the horrific pictures surrounding it, and I was deeply involved in the insurance loss. What was vivid in my mind—and I hope that it will be vivid in our minds at the end of all this—was the incredible effort made by people such as Red Adair in dealing with that dreadful disaster, as noble Lords will probably remember. All efforts were made from both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that the problem was solved, and that, I am reliably informed, is what is happening now in the US. BP is not alone in this; it has the full support of the oil industry companies, and that, I think, will be obvious as time passes by.

Safety is at the heart of this and must be in the future. We need to ensure that an accident such as this one or Piper Alpha does not happen again on our shores. I do not have the statistics with me but let us remember that more than 4,000 deep-water wells have been dug since 1980. Therefore, to date this has been a very satisfactory and productive development. It is dreadful that this accident has happened but one hopes that it is a freak event.