?Whether driven purposefully by ideological opponents or simply from lack of good information, misperceptions permeate the average person’s view of the oil and gas industry. The result is a negative perception of the industry.

And while the industry has one of the best safety records in the world, there still is a reflex assumption from the mere sight of a drilling platform that a Macondo moment is just waiting to happen.

The Gulf of Mexico blowout was brought under control, but at significant cost to the environment. This event – because it was uncontrolled for some time – prompted governments and people around the world to question regulations and guidelines governing offshore oil and gas operations. In the US, government officials are overhauling these regulations and are debating a new statutory framework. The need for such a review is apparent. But despite some potential benefits from an overhaul, the likely consequences of wholesale regulatory revisions are not all positive. They include further delays, further restrictions on operations, and increased costs.

Making a change

The oil and gas industry remains vital to the global economy and represents one of the largest employment sectors. In the US alone, the oil and gas industry supports 9.2 million jobs and accounts for more than US $1 trillion of its annual national economic activity.

Today, there is a largely untold story of how the geoscience community already successfully addresses many of the sensitive issues about oil and gas operations that worry people and governments around the world.

In response, the International Association of Geophysical Contractors (IAGC) has elected to undertake an extensive communications initiative. The goal of this initiative is to remind governments and other key constituencies of the importance of oil and gas in everyday lives and to illustrate how the industry already eliminates and can further reduce environmental risk by using geophysical technologies throughout the E&P cycle.

This is a critical time for the industry, and there is an urgent need to highlight the E&P technologies already in daily use by geophysicists, geologists, and others that enable E&P companies around the world to drill fewer, safer, and more productive wells. There is particular concern that governments considering revisions to oil and gas operating regulations will stifle further development of solutions that substantially reduce the human safety and environmental risks associated with E&P activities.

As part of its initiative, IAGC, along with its members, intends to increase communication with governments, including the US Congress. IAGC already has reached out to editors of major media outlets and will collaborate with various grassroots organizations. The organization has launched a website, www.geophysicsrocks.com to educate audiences not only on the vital role oil and gas plays in the global economy, but also how geophysical technologies already play a significant role in risk reduction.

IAGC seeks to point out where geophysical contractors and their E&P clients have contributed to some of the most remarkable game-changing oil industry technology developed in the last 25 years based on the use of seismic and other geophysical survey methods to image the subsurface of the earth both on land and offshore. By way of example, Chevron estimated that in 2009, seismic imaging technology helped the company achieve an exploration discovery rate of 57%; this is an exceptional figure for the industry given the unknowns when drilling.

As governments around the world contemplate revisions to existing regulations, they should not lose sight of the overall importance of oil and gas in today’s society. Likewise, as they redefine the regulatory framework for the future, officials should be mindful and take full advantage of the risk reduction role geophysical technologies play in the global oil and gas industry today. The geophysical industry seeks to help the oil and gas industry regain the public’s trust, and educating key stakeholders about the role geophysical technologies play in reducing E&P risks is one way of doing that.