NEW ORLEANS – Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) reached a new milestone in its text notification service in December 2020. BSEE launched this service in May 2019, becoming the first regulator in the world to provide critical safety information directly to workers via text message. Since its inception, more than 7,000 subscribers have signed up for the BSEE!Safe text notification service.
“Providing tools and resources to keep offshore workers safe was the driver for this initiative,” said Scott Angelle, BSEE Director. “Seeing the rise in BSEE!Safe text messaging subscriptions confirms the service is critical for offshore safety.”
The BSEE!Safe texts contain links to BSEE’s published Safety Alerts and Bulletins which include safety recommendations resulting from incidents and near misses on offshore oil and gas facilities. To view BSEE’s Safety Alerts and Bulletins, visit the Safety Alerts Program page.
With nearly 270,000 text messages sent representing 61 safety alerts since its inception, BSEE!Safe is delivering critical safety information to more offshore workers than ever before. To view BSEE's progress, visit BSEE!Safe Transparency page.
“Safety is not proprietary. BSEESafe! allows us to directly reach offshore workers and inform them of incidents and offers recommendations to prevent them from happening again,” said Jason Mathews, Chief, BSEE’s Office of Safety Management. “Through this effort, making our stakeholders aware of safety is no accident, it’s intentional.”
Improved safety performance offshore happens when information is shared and workers are aware. There has been a steady decline in injury and illness rates for offshore workers in the past few years. In 2019, when comparing offshore exploration and production injury and illness data that BSEE has been tracking for decades with data from annual Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, the offshore industry had the second best performance among high hazard industries in America – ranking second only to the nuclear power generation industry.
“Worker safety is the lifeblood of offshore production and the ability for BSEE!Safe to directly reach offshore personnel with timely and pertinent information is an invaluable tool to improving worker safety efforts,” said Russell Holmes, Director, Center for Offshore Safety. “There is nothing more important to us than protecting offshore workers and providing access to the latest recommendations is making a difference in our safety culture.”
“Directly reaching offshore workers with timely and pertinent safety information is an invaluable tool to improving worker safety,” said Evan Zimmerman, Executive Director, Offshore Operators Committee. “Worker safety is the lifeblood of offshore production and BSEE!Safe is one tool in the toolbox helping us strengthen a safety-first culture.”
“BSEE!Safe is an effective, timely way to communicate directly to the men and women who wear the hard hats and steel-toed boots; who kiss their families goodbye and set out to the OCS to do the hard work of fueling our nation,” said Angelle.
Subscribers to BSEE!Safe maintain their own contact information and can opt out of the service at any time.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) is the lead federal agency charged with improving safety and ensuring environmental protection related to the offshore energy industry, primarily oil and natural gas, on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Under President Trump, BSEE is conducting more inspections, increasing the number of safety initiatives, and ensuring more offshore oil and gas workers receive critical safety information.
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