Page 35: of Marine News Magazine (March 2011)

34 36

it would be surprising to see any, major new rules for marine support vessels after this accident,” he said.

Laborde Marine's business covers two segments — crew- boats and supply boats. After the spill, most of the com- pany's available, local crewboats were chartered by BP and others responding to the incident.

ANY NEW REGS SHOULD BE BASED ON REALITY

In Morgan City, La., David Barousse, business develop- ment director at Fleet Operators, Inc., worries about change for the sake of change. He said "if a safety support vessel requirement for every drilling rig and/or production platform in the Gulf of Mexico would prove to have a direct impact on saving lives and the environment, I would be behind it. However, I would not like to see the requirement forced on the industry by regulators just for the sake of saying that it exists — even though it may result in more work for our vessels.”Fleet Operators owns and charters supply vessels for the offshore oil and gas industry. Barousse said no one is more concerned about safety than his company's customers, who are mostly oil- and-gas exploration, production and service companies in the Gulf. “We often see the use of safety support vessels in situations where the customer feels that additional vessel support is needed, even though it may not be required.” www.marinelink.com MN 35

Capt. Hung Nguyen, co-chair of the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation. The Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy

Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) are co-chair- ing the fact-finding investigation launched to determine the cause of the initial incident and fire aboard the mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) Deepwater Horizon.

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Prentice Danner.