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Offshore oil and gas production is sort of a novelty for most of the country – something that’s not present in any other coasts --the other parts of the nation. It is very familiar in the Gulf Coast, and has been handled, if you will, by MMS and its predecessor agencies before MMS for now 50 years. We celebrated just a year or two ago the anniversary of the fiftieth year of first lease that had been issued. And by the way, some of those leases that were issued 50 years ago are still in production.

Well our responsibilities in the Gulf are quite vast. Most people in the country do not recognize that there is almost a middle sized city of oil and gas platforms that is out in the Gulf of Mexico. There are some 4,000 producing structures that are out in the Gulf of Mexico that contribute a very large percentage of the domestic production of the country. There’s in excess of 30,000 – 35,000 workers that are offshore every given day by the oil companies. So, like I said, it is just like a medium sized city that is out there every day.

The importance of preparation is probably something that cannot be overemphasized. I guess first of all the preparation is most important by the oil companies. Again they are the ones responsible for evacuating their personnel, shutting down and battening down the hatches, if you will, on their production facilities. MMS’s role of course is that we have made sure through requirements of what safety devices they have to have on the platforms, and through our inspection program year in and year out that those devices are not only present but working – we have ensured of that. But the preparation on the part of industry to have a plan to move those 35,000 people that are out there offshore working is a tremendous amount of planning and a huge logistical effort.

First of all, I am very, very proud of our people. Our people had just as many troubles as everybody else in the New Orleans area. Of our 600 people in our regional office, we had over 100 lost their homes and are living in FEMA trailers still this day. And those people still reported back to work. Many of them who had lost their homes reported to work almost immediately at our stand up temporary office in Houston. So here are people who are still worried about taking care of extended families, their grandmothers, their mothers, their parents, their fathers, their nieces-- they may have lost their homes, several of them had -- and at the same time they are reporting for work taking care of the government’s business.

MMS is a very highly trained and technical agency. We have some of the top geologists in the world, we have some of the top engineers -- petroleum, mechanical, and civil -- in the world that know the oil and gas business as well as anybody. We have some of the top environmental scientists, many with PhDs, who know environmental conditions and how to assess things from the environmental standpoint as well, if not better, than most anybody in the world. We are a very professional, highly trained organization that delivers a lot of strong knowledge day in and day out.

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Last Updated: 08/17/2007, 09:00 AM Central Time