Oil drilling in Gulf safer, but safety issues linger, says report

Thirteen years after the massive Deepwater Horizons spill fouled the Gulf of Mexico, regulators and industry have reduced some risks in deep water exploration in the gulf but some troublesome safety issues persist, a new study by the National Academy of Sciences said.

The creation of a specific federal agency for offshore oil drilling safety, an industrywide safety centre and new technology have all helped reduce risks, Tuesday's report said. But federal inspectors remain relatively powerless over contractors on rigs, which are 80 per cent of the workers.

The report also worried about the lack of an industrywide safety culture that integrates accident prevention into everyday work.

"There are a lot of things that are happening that are really good, but the industry is not at a place'' where it should be, said panel chairman Richard Sears. He was a longtime Shell executive who was the chief technical adviser to the federal panel that initially investigated the 2010 explosion on the B