Guidelines for the assessment of reports on major hazards based on the requirements of Directive 2013/30/EU : summary and highlights of the JRC training course under the virtual centre of offshore safety expertise

The blowout on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20th 2010, whilst drilling the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, significantly raised worldwide awareness of the risks involved in offshore oil and gas operations. In addition to the tragic loss of eleven lives, the blowout released nearly five million barrels of oil into the waters of the Gulf, and is considered to be the world's largest accidental oil spill from offshore operations. In order to ensure a high level of safety in the European offshore oil and gas industry, the EU Parliament and the Council published Directive 2013/30/EU, amending Directive 2004/35, obliging national Competent Authorities to control safety aspects of the offshore oil and gas installations in their waters. One of the fundamental new requirements of Directive 2013/30/EU is the preparation and submission by owners and operators of a Report on Major Hazards (RoMH) for every offshore installation. The RoMH aims at providing evidence that the overall risks from the installation (both to operators and to the environment) have been reduced to an acceptable level. Offshore oil and gas operations can only be conducted by that installation if its RoMH has been assessed and accepted by the Competent Authority of the relevant Member State. A Competent Authority (CA) - appointed pursuant to Directive 2013/30/EU - should be legally empowered and capable of performing the assessment of the relevant RoMHs. In order to assist CAs to acquire these competencies, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy (DG ENER) appointed the Joint Research Centre (JRC) for the development of a Virtual Centre of Offshore Safety Expertise (ViCOS).