Nation/World

U.S. Issues New Rules on Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a final set of regulations on offshore oil and gas drilling that are aimed at preventing the kind of equipment failures that caused the disastrous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The publication of the rules, which the administration released in draft form last year, is timed just before the sixth anniversary of the April 20 explosion on a BP oil rig that killed 11 and sent millions of barrels of oil into the gulf. The new rules come as the Obama administration has proposed opening up some pristine Arctic waters off Alaska to new drilling, angering environmentalists.

The Interior Department rules represent the final in a series of actions responding to the spill, including tougher inspection requirements and an overhaul of the government agencies that oversee offshore drilling. The rules announced Thursday are intended to tighten the safety requirements on underwater drilling equipment and well-control operations.

In particular, the new rules will tighten controls on blowout preventers, the industry-standard devices that are the last line of protection to stop explosions in undersea oil and gas wells. The 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig was caused in part by the buckling of a section of drill pipe, prompting the malfunction of a supposedly fail-safe blowout preventer on a BP well.

The rules also add tougher requirements to the design of undersea wells and the lining that coats the wells, as well as real-time monitoring of subsea drilling and spill containment.

"The well-control rule is a vital part of our extensive reform agenda to strengthen, update and modernize our offshore energy program using lessons learned from Deepwater Horizon," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement. She praised her agency's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which developed the rule, saying that it "takes into consideration an intensive analysis of the causes of the tragedy, advances in industry standards, best practices, as well as an unprecedented level of stakeholder outreach."

Environmentalists and the oil industry expressed skepticism about the new regulations. Environmentalists have noted that a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the BP spill concluded that its chief cause was not the failure of the blowout preventer but a broader breakdown in oversight by the drilling companies and government regulators.

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"The proposed rule is absolutely not sufficient to protect our oceans, but it is a significant improvement over the status quo and addresses some of the blowout-related concerns raised by various commissions following the BP disaster in 2010," said Jacqueline Savitz, the vice president of Oceana, an advocacy group.

"The only way to truly ensure there will never be another disaster of the magnitude of Deepwater Horizon is to stop drilling offshore," she added. "This is especially important in the Arctic, where conditions are extremely harsh, response capacity is almost nonexistent, and where there is absolutely no way to clean up an offshore spill."

The oil industry contends that it has already improved safety controls on offshore drilling, some of which align with the new regulations. But the industry argued that other elements of the regulations were onerous and could hamper safety.

"Today's highly prescriptive rule could result in unintended negative consequences leading to reduced safety, less environmental protection, fewer American jobs, and decreased U.S. oil and natural gas production," said Dan Naatz, a vice president of the Independent Petroleum Producers of America.

The new regulations would require an outside organization to conduct annual assessments of the mechanical integrity of blowout preventers, including a requirement that the equipment be maintained according to the manufacturers' original performance standards. It would also require continual monitoring, using undersea video and other equipment, of deepwater and other high-pressure, high-risk drilling activities.

In terms of equipment, the new regulations would require that blowout preventers be fitted with two devices, called shear rams, to provide a backup in case of equipment failure. A 2014 report by the federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an independent government watchdog, concluded that in the 2010 disaster the blowout preventer's shear ram, an emergency hydraulic tool with two cutting blades, punctured the pipe and sent oil and gas gushing to the surface.

The study found that the drill pipe had buckled under the tremendous pressure of the oil and gas rising from the well from the initial blowout. A backup shear ram could improve the likelihood that the equipment would seal off the pipe before it blows out.

But some advocacy groups criticized the rule as too little, too late.

"The fact that it has taken six years to get this rule out is a stunning indictment of our regulatory process: It moves far too slowly," said Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizen, a nonprofit government watchdog group, in a statement. "Even in the wake of historic deregulatory disasters like the BP oil spill, our regulatory system takes years to address glaring safety gaps that devastate working families, consumers and our environment."

Jewell said the extended review reflected the difficulty of drafting the rules. "It was very, very important that we deeply understood the root cause of the disaster and the evolution of the technology," she said in a conference call with reporters. "It takes a long time to understand what went wrong and a long time to do this right."

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