Today, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Brian Salerno announced that the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station's (TEES) Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center has been selected to manage the Ocean Energy Safety Institute (Institute). Director Salerno was joined by Dr. Sam Mannon, Regents Professor and Director, Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center and U.S. Representative Bill Flores. The five-year agreement, with $5 million in total funding from BSEE, will provide a forum for dialogue, shared learning and cooperative research among academia, government, industry and other non-government organizations in offshore-related technologies and activities that help ensure environmentally safe and responsible offshore operations. TEES is partnering with Texas A&M University, University of Texas and University of Houston to manage the institute.
Prior to making the announcement, Director Salerno (second from left) and BSEE Chief off Offshore Regulatory Programs Doug Morris (second from right) toured some of the facilities at TEES in College Station, Texas. The facilities visited included the Offshore Technology Research Center, which is capable of large scale simulations of the effects of wind, waves, and currents on fixed, floating and moored floating structures. Director Salerno also visited the Tower Lab, A 140-ft tall state-of-the-art multiphase flow loop for the investigation of steady-state and transient flows in pipes and testing of production engineering equipment, including production logging tools, downhole pumps and multiphase flow meters.
The Institute will serve as a focal point for leaders in industry, government and non-government organizations, and academicians to make offshore energy safer for people and the environment.
More information about the OESI announcement can be found here.
