Regulatory regimes for preventing major accidents in offshore operations: Evolution of approaches in the United States and China

This article selects the Macondo (2010) and Bohai Bay (2011) accidents to compare their impacts on the regulatory regimes for the safety of offshore oil and gas operations in the U.S. and China. Based on an analyzation of the main regulatory approaches, the article examines the regulatory changes before and after the two accidents. It reveals that both the U.S. and China heavily rely on prescriptive command and control regulation while the U.S. started to combine this with performance-based and management-based approaches in its regulatory reforms after the Macondo accident. Given the high risks arising from expanding offshore operations in the two countries, the article concludes that a combination of prescriptive, performance-based and management-based approaches seems to be the preferred regulatory option which however should be equally considered in the shifting of regulatory regimes for offshore operations in the two countries.