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Recently, for example, “two different customers have chartered one of our U.S. Coast Guard-endorsed Offshore

Supply Vessels to perform 24-hour, safety standby service,”

Barousse said. “The first was for a deepwater drillship pre- forming drilling operations, and the other was for a situa- tion in which a non-producing well was potentially leaking natural gas."

COAST GUARD'S REGULATORY PROJECTS PREDATE SPILL

According to the Coast Guard, any, future regulatory changes will be aimed at preventing another big spill.

O'Neil of the Coast Guard, said “the board's focus is on the conduct of a thorough and objective collection of data and analysis of that data to fully understand the causal and enabling factors that led to the accident.” He said "the

Coast Guard has a number of regulatory projects that began before the Deepwater Horizon incident, including the rewriting of Title 33, Subchapter N, and those projects will now be influenced by the accident in terms of timing and content.” Title 33 is a portion of the Code of Federal

Regulations governing U.S. navigation and navigable waters. Subchapter N deals with deepwater ports. O'Neil said “however, the Coast Guard will await the outcome of the joint Coast Guard and BOEMRE investigation to address specific, causal factors of the Deepwater Horizon accident, so that any regulatory changes reflect safety meas- ures that will best help prevent recurrence.” He also said “with regard to regulations for preparedness and response, there are a number of related initiatives in which the Coast

Guard is in the early stages of examining.”

SEEKING NEW STANDARD FOR OIL SKIMMERS

Before the spill, work had begun in the U.S. on a volun- tary, draft standard for Oil Spill Response Vessels or 36 MN March 2011

Laborde Marine’s support vessel Hilda.

Photo courtesy Laborde Marine

M/V Madeline, Fleet Operators, Inc.’s 110-ft utility vessel.

Photo courtesy Fleet Operator, Inc.