The Obama administration today unveiled a plan to better safeguard offshore oil wells that aims to prevent a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that marred the Gulf of Mexico nearly five years ago.
As Fuelfix.com reports, the measure codifies many of the steps that companies have already taken to better keep offshore wells in check, including more rigorous maintenance and testing of the blowout preventers that act as a last line of defense against uncontrolled surges of oil and gas.
Oil companies and their drilling contractors would have to completely break down and do a detailed physical inspection of those emergency devices every five years. And companies drilling in deep water would be forced to monitor their operations in real time from on shore within three years.
But one of the most substantial potential changes could be more than a decade in the future: a possible requirement for new-and-improved blowout preventer shear rams that can cut through almost anything in their path to help seal off open wells at the bottom of the sea.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell described the proposed regulation as “one of the most significant environmental and safety reforms” for offshore drilling, drafted in response to shortcomings illustrated when BP’s Macondo well blew out on April 20, 2010, sending explosive gas onto the Deepwater Horizon rig, triggering an explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashing the nation’s worst oil spill.
But she and other Interior officials repeatedly stressed to reporters today that the measure largely echoes changes that oil companies and contractors have already made or are making offshore.
“These are rules that are largely in place in terms of best practices,” Jewell says.
Although the proposal has an estimated industry-wide price tag of $883 million over 10 years, Jewell notes that drilling contractors are “already spending this money on their equipment, and that cost is already being passed on to operators.”
