Deep-water drilling is set to resume near the site of the catastrophic BP well blowout that killed 11 workers and caused the nation’s largest offshore oil spill five years ago off the coast of Louisiana.
A Louisiana-based oil company, LLOG Exploration Offshore, plans to drill into the Macondo reservoir, according to federal records reviewed by the Associated Press. Harper’s Magazine first reported the drilling plans late Tuesday.
LLOG’s permit to drill a new well near BP’s site was approved April 13 by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, an agency overseeing offshore oil and gas drilling operations. The company’s exploration plan was approved last October following an environmental review by a sister agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
The company, a privately owned firm based in Covington, will be looking to extract oil and gas deep under the Gulf of Mexico’s seafloor, an undertaking that proved catastrophic for BP.
“Our commitment is to not allow such an event to occur again,” says Rick Fowler, the vice president for deep-water projects at LLOG. “LLOG staff keeps the memory of what happened … fresh in our minds throughout our operations, both planning and execution.”
Richard Charter, a senior fellow with the Ocean Foundation and a longtime industry watchdog, says it would be cause for concern if a small company resumed drilling in the reservoir, which is located in a geographical area of the Gulf known as the Mississippi Canyon. Charter says drilling into that reservoir has proved very dangerous and highly technical, and raises questions about whether a company like LLOG has the financial means to respond to a blowout similar to BP’s.
“BP had deep pockets,” he says. “You don’t want someone not particularly qualified and not fully amortized to be tangling with this particular dragon.” He adds: “When a company can’t pay when something goes wrong, generally it’s the public that pays.”
Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane University Energy Institute in New Orleans, dismisses those concerns. He calls LLOG “an extremely well-financed and well-organized” company, adding the company has had an excellent reputation and is known for its veteran staff.
“If I were to pick anyone to go into that field after so many problems, I would pick LLOG,” Smith says. “They have demonstrated their ability to drill in the area.”
