The US Department of the Interior’s new oil and gas regulatory group Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) has handed down a new set of deepwater drilling suspensions – this time focused on the blowout preventers, rather than the water depth.
Now coined a drilling “suspension,” most likely in response to the drilling moratorium that was twice overturned by US courts, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and BOEM Director Michael Bromwich unveiled new drilling restrictions for the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, rather than stopping drillbits in waters of a certain depth, the regulatory group is stopping rigs with blowout preventers (BOPs) that are subsea or on the surface, but located on a floating facility.
The drilling suspensions will be in place through November 30, 2010.
BOPs are used in these two instances when drilling in deepwater. For instance, a surface BOP that is not floating, would be a jackup drilling rig, which typically only drills in waters up to 500 feet deep. Floating drilling rigs are required for deepwater drilling. Also, subsea BOPs are used in deepwater drilling.
The drilling suspension has been enacted after the deepwater drilling moratorium was overturned by a New Orleans court. The US then appealed the decision, to only lose again in a federal court.
The National Ocean Industries Association quickly criticized the drilling restrictions, saying the new suspensions may affect even more drilling rigs in the waters offshore the US.
“The practical effect is that whether you call this a suspension or a moratorium, there is not a clear path for deepwater exploration companies to follow, and until such a path exists, exploration is at a standstill and more jobs will be lost,” said NOIA Chairman Burt Adams. “If it looks like a moratorium, acts like a moratorium, and the effect is the same as a moratorium, it is a moratorium.”
Currently 33 deepwater rigs have been idled in the Gulf of Mexico due to the drilling moratorium. Producers have been forced to declare force majeures on the rigs, and the first two have been contracted and are leaving the US to drill in deepwaters elsewhere.
Coastal communities, companies and governmental representatives have been bewailing the drilling moratorium, citing the amount of jobs lost because of the restrictions.
