The Resumption of Deep Water Drilling

pgabriel · Mar 6, 2011

Good Editorial from the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement on the first deep water drilling permit issued since the BP disaster. A couple of points, the bureau just wanted to make sure that future drilling would be better able to handle blowouts. Wow, how evil and economy killing of them. Secondly, deepwater permit applications were actually on the decline prior to disaster.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7458626.html

Last week, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) approved the first new deep-water drilling permit since the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill. This permit represents a significant milestone for us and for the offshore oil and gas industry, and is an important step toward developing deep-water energy supplies offshore. This permit was issued for one simple reason: The operator successfully demonstrated that it could drill its deep-water well safely and that it was capable of containing a subsea blowout if it were to occur. We expect further deep-water permits to be approved in the coming weeks and months based on the same factors that led to the approval of this permit.

Since the suspension on deep-water drilling ended on Oct. 12, some members of industry, advocacy groups, as well as some public officials and editorial writers, have claimed that the lack of deep-water drilling permits was evidence of a concerted effort not to issue deep-water permits. As time has passed, the criticism has grown louder and has increasingly drowned out the explanations we have provided for the delays in permitting new deep-water projects.

The events of last April provide the necessary context. On April 20, the Macondo well blew out, causing 11 deaths, sinking the Deepwater Horizon rig, and spilling close to 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. This was the largest oil spill in U.S. history. The improvised attempts to gain control over the runaway well, which took nearly three months before succeeding, revealed as starkly as possible industry's failure to adequately prepare for and effectively respond to a deep-water blowout and spill.

The major difference between last April and today is that, for the first time, an operator demonstrated — in advance - that it has a plan and the equipment necessary to respond effectively in the event of another blowout. The capacity, the plan and the equipment did not exist less than a year ago.

Following the spill, we focused on addressing industry's shortcomings, as well as our own. We launched the most sweeping reforms of offshore regulation in U.S. history. We are reorganizing offshore oversight to eliminate conflicts of interest and provide regulatory focus; we have issued new drilling and workplace safety rules that reduce the risks of deep-water accidents; we are conducting site-specific environmental reviews in connection with deep-water drilling plans; and we are rigorously reviewing drilling plans and permit applications to ensure compliance with our enhanced safety measures. These changes have taken place as a result of intense focus on prevention, spill containment and spill response over the past 10 months. The new state of readiness and the advance planning that allow the approval of new deep-water permits are the result of that sustained effort - both by industry and government.

Improving the safety of offshore drilling, particularly in deep water, caused some slowdowns in the pace of permitting. And although these slowdowns are unsurprising after an event as transformative as Deepwater Horizon, the concerns about the slowdown need to be addressed in a responsible way. That is what we have done every day for the past several months.

We can have more productive discussions if we deal in facts and not rhetoric. Despite the claims of critics, before Monday's announcement we had already issued 37 drilling permits for new shallow-water wells since last June. While the pace of shallow-water permitting did slow immediately after Deepwater Horizon, the fact is that drilling applications in the Gulf of Mexico were trending downward for several years prior to Deepwater Horizon - in 2009, there were only a third of the shallow-water drilling permits issued in 2006, and the number of deep-water permits dropped 20 percent over the same period.

That said, anyone who witnessed the devastating effects of last year's oil spill should understand the need for additional scrutiny of new permit applications. We need to ensure that our new drilling safety rules are fully complied with; we need to review certifications by professional engineers of every stage of the drilling process; and in many cases we need to conduct more detailed environmental reviews. All of these steps are necessary and appropriate, but they extend the time needed to approve permits.

Until very recently, the main reason permits to drill new deep-water wells had not been approved was that operators were unable to demonstrate the ability to regain control of wells in deep water, as our regulations require. In private, they conceded as much, but the public discussion - focused on the absence of deep-water permits rather than the reasons for it - obscured those reasons. Following Deepwater Horizon, it would be unforgivable for drilling permits to be issued in the absence of an answer to the question, what happens if there is a blowout? Now one operator has shown specifically what it would do, and we expect others to follow.

The world of offshore drilling has undeniably changed over the last several months. We have a responsibility to enforce the new drilling rules, conduct better environmental reviews and require individualized demonstrations of well containment capabilities. That means that the pace of deep-water drilling permit approvals will not, at least in the short-term, match the pace of pre-Deepwater Horizon approvals. But the public can and should take comfort that, as deep-water drilling is resuming less than a year after Deepwater Horizon, it will be done more safely and responsibly than before.

Bromwich is the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
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esteban · Mar 7, 2011

Ha ha ha, a joke of an article this Monday morning!
This article was published by The Chronicle(they have about a little more than a hundred readers left) and put out by an Obama agency, you can't be anymore objective than that.

My wife is a director of accounting for one of the oil & gas drilling companies and she disappoved this article.

Enjoy your $10 per gallon and your little green energy scams. You guys can gather around your TV sets by next November and say goodbye to your beloved man-child and his little evil plans to destroy America!

pgabriel · Mar 7, 2011

esteban said: ↑

Ha ha ha, a joke of an article this Monday morning!
This article was published by The Chronicle(they have about a little more than a hundred readers left) and put out by an Obama agency, you can't be anymore objective than that.

My wife is a director of accounting for one of the oil & gas drilling companies and she disappoved this article.

Enjoy your $10 per gallon and your little green energy scams. You guys can gather around your TV sets by next November and say goodbye to your beloved man-child and his little evil plans to destroy America!
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what did you say when oil shot up to $140 under bush.

care to elaborate on why your wife disapproves?

thadeus · Mar 7, 2011

So ... has BP been punished yet?

Lil Pun · Mar 7, 2011

esteban said: ↑

Ha ha ha, a joke of an article this Monday morning!
This article was published by The Chronicle(they have about a little more than a hundred readers left) and put out by an Obama agency, you can't be anymore objective than that.

My wife is a director of accounting for one of the oil & gas drilling companies and she disappoved this article.

Enjoy your $10 per gallon and your little green energy scams. You guys can gather around your TV sets by next November and say goodbye to your beloved man-child and his little evil plans to destroy America!
Click to expand...

I don't use the ignore feature much but.....

pgabriel · Apr 4, 2011

rachel maddow was going off on this last week. should have bumped this then but anyway. she was saying that the gov't hasn't required a new design to Blowout Preventers. They just want you to prove they work. she had some oil and gas exec saying that a functioning blowout preventer wouldn't have prevented the disaster

she also said that BP had been given one of the new permits which is wrong. as egotistical as she can be and condescending as she can be i've seen her make numerous errors. add to that, she even invoked the word "scandal" in relation to the obama admin issuing these permits again. she feels no real changes have been made

pgabriel · Jun 8, 2011

Major find in the Gulf

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