Interior Department, BSEE release final well control regulations
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Obama administration’s long-awaited final offshore well control regulations were released Thursday by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) Brian Salerno.
The government says the rule will reduce the risk of an offshore blowout, but critics warned that it could reduce offshore worker safety and hurt future offshore development.
According to Interior, the regulations build upon the findings and recommendations from several investigations and reports concerning the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon incident and extensive consultation with industry groups, equipment manufacturers, federal agencies, academia and environmental organizations.
The final rule, Interior says, is a comprehensive regulation addressing all dimensions of well control, including more stringent design requirements and operational procedures for critical well control equipment used in oil and gas operations on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.
Specifically, the final rule addresses the full range of systems and equipment related to well-control operations, with a focus on blowout preventer requirements, well design, well control casing, cementing, real-time monitoring and subsea containment.
The measures are designed to improve equipment reliability, especially for blowout preventers and blowout prevention technologies. The rule requires operability of equipment through rigorous testing and provides for the continuous oversight of operations, all with the goal of improving the reliability of equipment and systems to protect workers’ lives and the environment from the potentially devastating effects of blowouts and offshore oil spills.
The regulations combine prescriptive and performance-based measures to ensure that oil and gas companies and offshore rig operators are cultivating a greater culture of safety that minimizes risk.
Key features of the rule include requirements for blowout preventer systems, double shear rams, third party reviews of equipment, real-time monitoring data, safe drilling margins, centralizers, inspection intervals, and other reforms related to well design and control, casing, cementing, and subsea containment.
Based on robust, technical comments received during the rulemaking process, several adjustments were made to provisions of the proposed rule that are reflected in the final version, Interior said in a statement. These changes preserve stringent requirements regarding the safety drilling margin, interval testing and major inspections for blowout preventers, and also incorporate criteria for alternative practices that are subject to review, justification and approval. This rule provides flexibility so that regulatory oversight keeps pace with technological changes, provided future innovations can meet the rule’s standards for safety performance.
“We have made it a priority to engage with industry to strengthen our understanding of emerging technology, to participate with standards development organizations and to seek out the perspectives of other stakeholders,” said BSEE Director Brian Salerno. “We collected best practices on preventing well control incidents and blowouts to inform the development of this rule. As a result, this is one of the most comprehensive offshore safety and environmental protection rules ever developed by the Department of the Interior.”
According to Interior, the new rule is in harmony with industry’s best practices, standards and equipment specifications. For example, new drilling rigs already are being built pursuant to updated industry standards that BSEE used as a foundation for the rule. Furthermore, most rigs comply with recognized engineering practices and original equipment manufacturers requirements related to repair and training. For companies that may need time to bring their operations into compliance, most of the requirements do not become effective until 3 months after publication of the final rule. Several requirements have more extended timeframes for compliance.
However, IPAA warned that the final rule could impact offshore worker safety and hurt future offshore energy development.
“This long-anticipated rule, half a decade in the making, was the federal government’s chance to get it right—to implement new offshore operating standards that would balance workable safety measures with the continued development of America’s rich energy resources. Instead, today’s highly prescriptive rule could result in unintended negative consequences leading to reduced safety, less environmental protection, fewer American jobs, and decreased U.S. oil and natural gas production,” Dan Naatz, senior V.P. of government relations and political affairs for IPAA, said.
Meanwhile, API said it is reviewing the final rule and welcomed the government’s alignment with the industry’s leadership on safety. API cautioned, however, that elements of the initial proposal were found to have technical problems and, if left unchanged, could make offshore operations less safe.
“We are committed to safe operations and support efforts by the government to build upon the progress already made by the industry on safety,” said Erik Milito, API upstream group director. “We must make sure that technical changes were made to aspects of the government’s initial proposal that could have made offshore operations less safe.”
