"We are open for business," Salazar said during a conference call with reporters.
But Salazar and Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement, cautioned that companies would have to satisfy new, tougher safety regulations and rigs will have to pass new BOEM inspections before permits would be issued.
Still, Salazar and Bromwich said they hoped permits could be issued "before the end of the year."
"I expect we will see a resumption of deepwater drilling very soon," Salazar said.
Companies wishing to obtain permits must comply with rules requiring improvements in equipment and safety practices, including new requirements for cementing and blowout preventers. More detailed oil spill response plans will also be required, Salazar said.
The moratorium was imposed in response to the April 20 blowout of the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Salazar said his decision was based in large part on the work performed over the past three months by Bromwich, who, in a report delivered to Salazar on October 1, recommended that the deepwater ban be lifted.
"The risks have been reduced sufficiently to allow drilling to resume," Bromwich said in a conference call with reporters.
Some of the new rules require the CEOs of oil and gas drilling companies to personally certify that drilling rigs comply with all new as well as existing rules.
Salazar also said he is satisfied that oil spill response resources, which had been tied up responding to the BP Macondo spill, are now free to respond to any future accidents.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
