US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said in a statement on Monday that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) is to issue new suspensions of deepwater drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) citing the industry’s ‘inability’ to manage a deepwater blowout such as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
He said a pause is needed to ensure that oil and gas companies first implement adequate safety measures to reduce the risks associated with deepwater drilling operations and are prepared for blowouts and oil spills.
“More than eighty days into the BP oil spill, a pause on deepwater drilling is essential and appropriate to protect communities, coasts, and wildlife from the risks that deepwater drilling currently pose,” said Secretary Salazar. “I am basing my decision on evidence that grows every day of the industry’s inability in the deepwater to contain a catastrophic blowout, respond to an oil spill, and to operate safely.”
According to the statement, shallow water drilling activities that use different technologies do not present the same type or level of risks as deepwater drilling operations and can continue to move forward if operators are in compliance with all safety and environmental requirements, including new safety and environmental requirements implemented through recent Notices to Lessees. Production activities in federal waters of the Gulf are not affected by the deepwater drilling suspensions.
Secretary Salazar’s decision to impose new deepwater drilling suspensions is based on his authorities and responsibilities under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) to ensure safe operations on the OCS. The new decision is supported by an extensive record of existing and new information indicating that allowing new deepwater drilling to commence would pose a threat of serious, irreparable, or immediate harm or damage to the marine, coastal, and human environment.
In a decision memorandum to BOEM Director Michael R. Bromwich, Salazar said that a temporary pause on deepwater drilling will provide time to implement recent safety reforms and for:
- The submission of evidence by operators demonstrating that they have the ability to respond effectively to a potential oil spill in the Gulf, given the unprecedented commitment of available oil spill response resources that are now being dedicated to the BP oil spill;
- The assessment of wild well intervention and blowout containment resources to determine the strategies and methods by which they can be made more readily available should another blowout occur; and
- The collection and analysis of key evidence regarding the potential causes of the April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, including information collected by the Presidential Commission and other investigations.
In this period, the Department and BOEM will also be issuing and implementing interim safety rules in accordance with recommendations in the 30-Day Safety Report that the Secretary submitted to the President on May 27, 2010.
The suspensions ordered are due to last until November 30, 2010, or until such earlier time that the Secretary determines that deepwater drilling operations can proceed safely, the statement said.
Industry needs to ‘raise bar’
To help inform decisions about deepwater drilling safety reforms Salazar also asked Director Bromwich to engage in an active public outreach effort with industry, academic experts, the public and other interested parties, and to prepare a report with recommendations on deepwater drilling.
“I remain open to modifying the new deepwater drilling suspensions based on new information,” said Salazar, “but industry must raise the bar on its practices and answer fundamental questions about deepwater safety, blowout prevention and containment, and oil spill response.”
The new suspensions apply to drilling operations that use subsea blowout preventers (BOP) or surface BOPs on floating facilities.
Like the deepwater drilling moratorium lifted by the District Court on June 22, these new deepwater drilling suspensions apply to most deepwater drilling activities and could last through November 30. The suspensions ordered today, however, are the product of a new decision by the Secretary and new evidence regarding safety concerns, blowout containment shortcomings within the industry, and spill response capabilities that are strained by the BP oil spill.
This new decision does not rule out the resumption of deepwater drilling activities following a fact-finding process through which BOEM gathers new information on safety and response from the public, experts, stakeholders and the industry. In addition, the May 28 moratorium proscribed drilling based on specific water depths; the new decision does not suspend activities based on water depth, but on the basis of the drilling configurations and technologies.
