Could a Predicted Natural Hazard Still Be Considered As "force Majeure"?

Nowadays we are living in the "Age of Knowledge". The technology today allows the human being to build and maintain huge databases and facilitates to process them as never seen before. Therefore, many ways to prevent natural disasters using technology and huge databases were created to advise users in advance and to mitigate the possible tragic consequences. In the oil industry, the capital and operating costs of the upstream activity have increased strongly in the last years and the operators are saying that the main reasons, among other, for that are the new standards of HSE (Health, Safety and Environmental) required in their operations. In fact that is not the entire truth because the technology has improved a lot and safety parameters are frequently revised based on such new technology. Generally, when DP (Dynamic Positioning) operators are advised previously of a possible natural hazard occurrence, usually they consider it like an emergency situation and their main action is oriented only to prepare the first response and use the "force majeure" argumentation to protect itself from any additional responsibility. When the natural phenomenon actually happens, the expenses due to the losses will be accepted because it was already considered in its budget as "Losses due to accident" and it will be shared by the partners of the project according to the correspondent contractual terms. This paper describes real cases of the evolution of predictions for natural hazards in offshore basins in Brazil, Western Africa and Gulf of Mexico where Petrobras and many other companies have DP operations and proposes some alternative procedures through the BCM (Business Continuity Management) to manage natural crisis instead of the common use of the traditional "force majeure" argumentation.