Even after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, oil producers provide little environmental and safety data to help investors measure progress, according to a new report out today.

Ceres, a Boston-based group of institutional investors, urged the Department of Energy to find some role for U.S. securities regulators in shining more light on the investments that deepwater oil and gas drillers make to ensure another Deepwater Horizon doesn't happen again.

Ceres contends there is little evidence in public documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the largest publicly traded oil and gas producers are making those investments.

"Few companies provided good disclosure in important deepwater drilling categories, including drilling risk management, statistics and spill response," Ceres said in the report, "Sustainable Extraction?" "Yet companies continue to expand deepwater exploration and production, posing significant risks to investors and stakeholders."

The organization looked at oil and gas company disclosures to the SEC in 2010 and the early part of 2011. Ceres urged more disclosure of environmental, health and safety "performance data"; investments in spill prevention and response; spill contingency plans; and contractor selection. "Investors lack basic information about the degree of companies' exposure to risky offshore environments," the report says.

Ceres has long pressed for more disclosure across the corporate world on risks associated with climate change. For energy companies and the industrial sector, that has meant providing more detail to investors about capital spending on technology to cut carbon emissions. In 2010, the SEC issued a "guidance" strongly recommending that companies disclose "material risks" tied to climate.

Lately, Ceres; members that include pension fund managers for the state and city of New York, Connecticut and California; and a number of environmental groups are pressing oil and gas producers to tell the public what they are spending on safety and oil spill response. There is risky new drilling in the Arctic and more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

In June, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups filed suit challenging the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's latest sale of drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The suit asserted the government is running roughshod over "the lessons learned" in the Deepwater Horizon disaster by not getting updates about resources for cleanups and the status of species still suffering after the spill.

Corporate disclosure has not gotten as much attention as the U.S. government's sweeping overhaul of offshore drilling oversight since the Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 people and let loose millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.

Ceres turned to the SEC's approach toward risks associated with hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry and climate change. There, the SEC under an Obama administration appointee, Chairwoman Mary Schapiro, has sought to fold those into a requirement that companies disclose information about "material risk."

"The SEC staff should look closely at disclosure of offshore drilling risks as they review filings," said the Ceres report, "and consider the development of guidance or rulemaking, if needed to improve reporting."

Ceres found that eight out of 10 large publicly traded oil and gas producers "provided minimal or no information" in 2010 and in early 2011 about investments meant to increase safety on deepwater rigs dotting the Gulf of Mexico. Those companies are Apache Corp., BP PLC, Chevron Corp. ConocoPhillips Co., Eni SpA, Exxon Mobil Corp., Marathon Oil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Suncor Energy Inc. and Total SA.

For BP investors, the "true cost" of Deepwater Horizon is the $86 billion hit investors took because of a declining stock price. "Faced with such staggering sums, investors are willing to fight for years -- and spend a lot of money -- to recover their share of those losses," Jim Coburn, director of corporate disclosure at Ceres, said in a blog post to accompany the report.

Bringing the research up to date, Coburn said Chevron did not provide any environmental and safety statistics in first-quarter 2012 filings. He also characterized Chevron claims on its website about ratcheting up safety, risk management and environmental oversight as "brief and undocumented."

Still, Chevron provides a 52-page 2011 corporate responsibility report that includes statistics and graphs on accidents and fatalities from 2007 to 2011. On the environmental front, the same report includes data on greenhouse gas emissions.

Ceres also took aim at Shell, one of the biggest bidders in recent drilling lease auctions. Ceres said no details were given in recent disclosures about research and development spending to strengthen Shell's risk management. Shell is also paving the way for drilling in the fragile Arctic environment and building up its capacity to exploit onshore unconventional oil and gas fields.