The publication of the rules in the Federal Register, which will occur next week, paves the way for the early lifting of the six-month deepwater drilling moratorium. Officials have said that compliance with the new regulations would be necessary for companies to resume operations once the
moratorium expires on November 30 or is lifted early.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement also estimated on Friday that the new regulations will increase costs for the industry by about $183 million annually -- $1.42 million for a typical deepwater well and about $90,000 for a typical shallow water well.
The BOEM also released a new Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS) rule that makes mandatory a standard developed by the American Petroleum Institute that had previously been voluntary. Those rules relate to decision making and operating procedures rather than equipment requirements.
The new drilling rule, known as the interim final rule, is effective immediately, although BOEM has said it will accept public comment for 60 days, after which it may revise the regulation. The SEMS rules will become effective on November 15.
BOEM hinted in the explanatory section of the new rules that the suspension of deepwater drilling could be modified before November 30 and that many deepwater companies have already begun to implement some of the new requirements, which were first contained in a safety report issued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in May in the aftermath of the April 20 blowout of BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.
"BOEMRE is cognizant of the fact that the secretary has the ability to extend the suspension of operations covered by his July 12, 2010, decision, or to apply the suspension to additional operations on the OCS," the rule states. "Immediate application of the safety measures in this interim final rule, however, will improve the reliability of well control systems, thereby allowing all oil and gas operations on the OCS to proceed in a more safe and environmentally sound manner."
BOEM said it decided not to mandate the use of an acoustic system as a backup for triggering the blowout preventer in the case of a loss of well control incident.
REDUNDANT BOP TRIGGER REQUIRED
The new rule does require redundant systems to trigger the BOP in the case of a loss of power or the sudden disconnection of the riser from the well. But officials said more study is needed before mandating the use of an acoustic system, where sonic signals are sent from a drilling rig on the
surface to activate the rams in the BOP that are designed to prevent the flow of oil and gas to the surface.
In the days after the Macondo blowout, many critics, including members of Congress, said that an acoustic switch on the BOP might have prevented the disaster. Acoustic systems are required in some countries, such as Norway.
"Industry, academics and other stakeholders have raised concerns about how the differences in water temperatures between water layers (deepwater thermocline) will affect the transmission of the acoustic signal to the BOP stack when installed in deepwater," the rule states.
The new rule also left out a requirement that BOPs have a second set of blind shear rams to ensure that drilling pipe could be effectively cut in the case of a blowout. But BOEM has said it is likely to include such a requirement in future rulemaking.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
