The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is continuing its investigation of the oil release from Shell Offshore Inc.’s Glider Field on May 12. The Glider Field, located approximately 97 miles south of Port Fourchon, LA, includes subsea wells and the field’s production flows to the Brutus Platform.

BSEE Gulf of Mexico Regional Director Lars Herbst formally established an Investigative Panel May 16. The seven-member panel is comprised of BSEE engineers, inspectors, and investigators. The panel will conduct a thorough investigation of the incident in order to identify the causes and any contributing issues that led to the release. The panel will make recommendations in its final report on how to strengthen existing safety and environmental management systems, and identify any reforms to existing regulations that may be needed. The focus of these recommendations is to prevent a similar incident from occurring.

BSEE approved Shell’s plan for recovery of the damaged flowline segment. A BSEE inspector is on board the recovery vessel to observe the recovery operations. All repair plans for the subsea flow lines and production systems will be submitted to BSEE for review.

Production remains shut-in from the two subsea fields that flow to the Brutus platform. BSEE will not approve production restart of these subsea fields until all safety concerns and applicable regulations have been met.