From the President - October 2001
The attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September and the sickening, massive loss of life is, understandably, foremost in everyone's mind.
The grief will be long lasting and, I'm sure, has touched everyone in our global industry in one way or another. On behalf of IMCA I would like to extend our condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in the disaster. It is difficult to re-focus on everyday business with such a cloud hanging over us. Getting back to that, however, is undoubtedly the best response.
The atmosphere around Offshore Europe in Aberdeen at the beginning of September was buoyant and in stark contrast to that of two years ago. Subsea well count is a fair indicator of the activity for our industry and of the 1900 subsea wells world-wide, half are in the North Sea. Less than half of the proven recoverable reserves have been produced and, with the extensive infrastructure of processing and export facilities, subsea development will be favoured and the future is bright. One quarter of BP's global oil production comes from the North Sea area and, in a vote of confidence for the future, BP has just announced plans to build a $100m headquarters complex in Aberdeen.
Against this background, the average age of the oil and gas workforce in general, and in our sector in particular, continues to creep up. Activity is high, skilled people are scarce and our answer is to poach people from each other, doing nothing to expand the resource base and encouraging an inflationary spiral. We work in an exciting industry with a bright future but, to ensure sustainability, it is incumbent upon all of us to recruit and train fresh new talent.
This week I've been made aware of three offshore incidents resulting in injury, all of a similar nature to previous incidents experienced by member companies. One of our key roles in IMCA is to share experience and learning amongst members to avoid the recurrence of accidents and injury, as well as to improve overall health, safety and environmental performance in our operations. We have an effective system in place, but this illustrates that more can be done.
On 24-25 January 2002, Chris van Beek, Chairman of the SEL Committee, is organising a health, safety and environment seminar at Old Trafford in Manchester. The intention is for this event to include presentations from various members about actual incidents in an attempt to spread the learning through the industry and so reduce our accident frequency rate.
I ask all of you to offer your wholehearted support to this initiative.
John Smith, Halliburton Subsea
IMCA President 2001-2
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