Offshore companies spend millions of dollars locally on safety systems to help prevent another blowout

Houston — The Houston Chronicle is reporting; nearly a year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, a sharper focus on offshore safety is boosting demand for specialized equipment and services centered in Houston, even as the nation's chief hub for the offshore industry continues to wrestle with a drilling slowdown.

Eager to get back to work, oil companies are spending millions to satisfy tougher safety and environmental regulations in the Gulf of Mexico. And they're sending business to local firms that have built whole new oil-spill containment systems, overhauled giant blowout preventers, developed better tools for monitoring offshore rig activities and attempted to predict what regulators will require next.

And despite the beginning of recovery for the industry, drilling activity in the deep-water Gulf remains at a near standstill. Companies have been hesitant to invest in new equipment and services until they know the full scope of rules that will govern the offshore region.

But over the long term, the trend could give a lift to some local companies and help offset a fraction of the economic blow dealt to industry by the BP oil spill.

To read more; head to The Houston Chronicle's website; http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7525880.html