BP vows to tighten its standards for any future drilling in Gulf
I'm sorry... I need a few moments to stop laughing.
(Wild laughter cascades through the halls of Gulf Watchers)
Okay. I'm better now. Thanks.
(Suppresses giggle.)
No. Really.
Signaling its desire to resume Gulf Coast operations, the oil giant BP said Friday that it is ready to implement more stringent standards for any future drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
"BP's commitment in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon incident is not only to restore the economic and environmental conditions among the affected areas of the Gulf Coast, but also to apply what we have learned to improve the way we operate," BP group chief executive Bob Dudley said. "We believe the commitments we have outlined today will promote greater levels of safety and preparedness in deepwater drilling."
BP Exploration and Production Inc. made its intentions known in a letter to Michael Bromwich, director of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, who was the sole witness at a hearing Friday morning of the House Natural Resources Committee on his reform of the regulatory regime.
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Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Natural Resources panel and a supporter of tighter regulation of drilling operations, suggested to Bromwich that perhaps BP's new regimen should be applied to other oil companies.
Bromwich said that while these augmented standards might find their way into new rules being developed by his agency, he would not want to introduce new standards in the meantime.
But under prodding from Markey, Bromwich acknowledged that the other four major oil companies [including Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell] could afford the additional practices that BP has pledged itself to.
Bromwich also told Republicans on the House committee, who have been bitterly critical of the pace of permitting, that their proposed budget for the next fiscal year would only slow its work, by depriving it of about 20 new permitting personnel and 50 inspectors.
At the outset of the hearing, Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said that lawmakers had provided BOEMRE with "significant additional funding." But Bromwich said it was $35 million below what the president had requested.
He also said the Republican narrative that his agency was involved in some kind of "slowmatorium" on permitting, as Rep. John Fleming, R-Minden, called it, was based on outdated data and a shopworn "narrative."
The sharpest, and least cordial exchanges, were, as usual, between Bromwich and Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia, who tangled over the pace of permitting for work plugging and abandoning idle wells, and Bromwich's assertion that contractors -- and not just operators -- should be subject to BOEMRE's authority.
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Landry also criticized Bromwich's indication that BOEMRE's authority should extend to contractors.
"I'm not a big-government guy, in case it never occurred to you," Landry said. "I'm concerned you want to extend your reach into service contractors."
Landry said that BOEMRE should continue to confine its regulation to operators, who he said would punish rogue contractors by not hiring them.
But Bromwich said that, while he had no intention to impose new regulations on contractors, it made no sense not to go after them when an investigation into a spill or other mishap revealed "extremely egregious" problems on their part. It would, he said, be "silly and misguided" not to.
BP promises safer drilling after oil spill, without admitting flaws
BP PLC promised improved drilling practices on Friday as the company balances twin aims of rebuilding investor and public confidence after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and not admitting flaws in its own procedures.
BP said it would in future more closely oversee the work of its contractors, echoing its position that the rig blast, which killed 11 men and led to the spill, was the fault of its contractors, including driller Transocean and Halliburton.
The companies have filed lawsuits worth tens of billions of dollars blaming each other for the blast, and any admission by BP that its existing drilling procedures needed improvements could weaken its legal position.
BP said it would also establish centres for monitoring its drilling wells in real time — something some rivals already do and which might have prevented the well blow-out which caused the disaster.
The London-based company declined to comment on whether it was addressing shortcomings in its own internal procedures that were highlighted in government investigations, such as its reliance on a single barrier to keep oil and gas in the well.
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“BP clearly understands that they have to win back not only the regulators’ confidence, but the confidence of the public as well,” the head of the U.S. offshore drilling regulator Michael Bromwich said at a congressional hearing in Washington.
BP’s chief executive Bob Dudley[...] has declined to say whether BP was adopting enhanced well design measures, although Bromwich told reporters on the sidelines of a conference last month that BP had told his agency it was adopting improved internal standards in such areas as well design.
More specifically:
BP said that with regard to its drilling operations in the Gulf in the future it will:
—Require that one of its engineers or an independent third-party monitor conduct lab testing of the cement used to seal its deepwater wells. It will provide the results to government officials.
—Require extra precautions be taken with blowout preventers used on rigs it leases to drill its wells. The measures involve using blowout preventers with extra shearing devices that would cut through drill pipe and seal a well in the event of a mishap.
—Include in its oil spill response plan information about enhanced response measures based on lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The cement and blowout preventer used with BP's well and the oil spill response plan it employed during the disaster all came under fire in numerous investigations of the disaster by the government, Congress and the companies involved.
New drilling rules have been imposed, a high-tech system for capping a blown-out well and containing the oil has been built, and regulators have taken steps to ramp up oversight of the industry.
But industry experts have said that despite the extra measures taken by government and industry since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, they believe another disaster could happen again.
They have noted that the effectiveness of the much-touted containment system has been questioned, and a design flaw in the blowout preventers widely used across the industry has been identified but not corrected.
The Houston Chronicle makes this important point:
Although BP is a financial partner in several offshore oil and natural gas projects launched since last year's spill, the company has not received the government's permission to take the lead role in operating any new wells.
Bureau officials have said there is no agreement with BP to let it resume offshore drilling, and Bromwich stressed that any of its drilling proposals still will be judged individually on their merits. The agency doesn't disclose applications from specific companies.
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