The media is finally becoming aware of the fact that the drillship Deepwater Horizon, the drillship over BP's Macondo well blowout, was registered in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. This is not new information.
The L. A. Times is saying, "The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon." Well, yes and no. The country of registry does set their safety requirements, but they usually accept the safety inspections of the classification socities. Classification societies are independent agencies that set standards for ship construction and operation. If these standards are met then insurers will sell insurance to the ship owners. If the standards are not met then the ship or drill rig likely cannot get insurance and cannot work nor sail.
The Deepwater Horizon was classed by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) headquartered in Houston Texas. This means that the Deepwater Horizon was built to ABS standards, it was inspected during construction to confirm adherence to the standards, and it was regularly inspected to confirm compliance with the standards. Even the U.S. Coast Guard accepts ABS inspections of U.S. flag vessels in lieu of USCG inspections in the Coast Guard's Alternative Compliance Program.
There are top quality classification societies and bargain basement classification societies. The tops are the ABS, Lloyd's Register (U.K.), Germanischer Lloyd (Germany), Det Norske Veritas (Norway), Bureau Veritas (France). These have branches all over the world.
Many U.S. vessel owners register their vessels in the Marshall Islands for the usual reason--it's cheap--plus the Marshall Islands gets defense protection from the U.S. as a carry over from the U.S. administration of the former trust territory following WWII. Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon, was a U.S. company before they moved their official address to Switzerland to save taxes.
So...the condition of the Deepwater Horizon and any other vessel depends on the owner's requirements plus the minimum necessary to obtain insurance. Some are very good. Some are very poor. A huge consideration is the crew requirements. The U.S. has some of the strictest requirements for crew qualifications and crewing standards in the world.
I'd like to see all drillships and oil service vessels that work over U.S. oil leases be required to have the U.S. flag and therefor meet all U.S. safety and crewing requirements.