The European Union can be hit or miss when it comes to legislation, but a new proposed law to regulate safety in the oil and gas sector could aid contractors.
Working an offshore oil or gas rig can be a dangerous proposition, even for a skilled and experienced umbrella contractor or freelancer. However, new proposed rules could see firms required to provide greater levels of safety if they want to be cleared to begin drilling operations, and this could lead to a serious decline in the number of injuries that rig workers are almost constantly exposed to on a day to day basis.
It’s not all just submitting emergency response pans and major hazard reports either, as the new law would have to also put into place detailed environmental damage recovery plans in order to prevent the kind of economic and environmental impact that the Gulf of Mexico saw from the Deepwater Horizon spill courtesy of BP, and let’s be honest – that was an absolute disaster.
The new laws are actually in direct response to that horrid mess down in the Gulf of Mexico, says MEP Ivo Belet, who went on to explain that the lessons learned by Europe include wanting to provide better risk management to not just oil and gas workers but also o the impact on the environment. On top of that, MEP Belet added that it’s high time for a new directive, considering the current one is almost two decades old and has no safety guarantees whatsoever, making it the equivalent of a ticking time bomb when it comes to an offshore drilling problem arising.
For what it’s worth, I’d love to see some better protections afforded to not just oil and gas platform workers but also to the environment at large, especially with so much offshore drilling occurring in the North Sea. Yes, it’s got vast resources that the UK is just itching to tap – and with the proliferation of offshore operations springing up over the past few years, we’re well on our way to harnessing these resources, which will provide the UK with some much-needed energy independence – but if exploiting these oil and gas deposits means sacrificing the environment, I’d rather have very stringent safety regulations in order to prevent another Deepwater Horizon.
Now I can only hope that the EU will draft legislation that isn’t completely mad, and let’s face it: their track record is rather poor. The insurance industry is still reeling from the EU regulation banning using gender differences in calculating interest rates on car insurance on the grounds of it being gender discrimination, and that ended up driving rates up significantly – especially for women – so let’s hope there’s some more intelligent blokes at the wheel of this one, shall we?
