AUCKLAND, New Zealand – Key offshore oil and gas regulators from around the world gathered last month in Auckland, New Zealand for the 23 rd Annual General Meeting of the International Regulators’ Forum. The three day meeting, held October 18-20, was hosted by WorkSafe New Zealand and attended by representatives from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom, and United States.
At the 2015 Annual General Meeting, held in Washington, three working groups were established to focus on key areas of technical collaboration—shared organizational priorities in performance measures, asset integrity, and culture. Each workgroup provided a status report on their efforts during the 2016 meeting in Auckland.
Discussions during the meeting also highlighted shared concerns and good practices amongst the member countries, including: decommissioning, life extension, data analysis and sharing, bolt failures, regulator training, and maintaining safe operations in a low oil price environment.
“We spent a significant amount of time discussing each nation’s regulations and specific approaches to offshore safety,” said BSEE Director and current IRF Chair Brian Salerno. “It’s an excellent opportunity to learn from each nation’s best practices.”
The 2017 Annual General Meeting will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.