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U.S. approves first post-spill drilling plan for BP
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CNTV, October 22, 2011
U.S. regulators on Friday approved BP's new exploration plan, moving the company closer to drilling new wells in the lucrative deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico a year and a half after the biggest offshore oil disaster in U.S. history.
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The Transocean Development Driller III (R) and the Discoverer Enterprise drilling rig try to recover oil and cap the Deepwater Horizon spill site on July 3, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. |
BP will still need to get permits before it begins any drilling outlined in the plan, which is the company's first to be approved since an explosion killed 11 workers and ruptured its Macondo well, spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico last year.
BP's plan includes drilling up to four wells off the coast of Louisiana at more than 6,000 feet (1,829 metres) under water, deeper than BP's doomed Macondo well, which was in 5,000 feet of water.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said BP's exploration plan meets the stringent standards issued by the government after the massive spill, as well as the additional self-imposed standards BP said it would comply with earlier this year.
"Our review of BP's plan included verification of BP's compliance with the heightened standards that all deepwater activities must meet," said BOEM director Tommy Beaudreau said in a statement.
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File photo of the Discoverer Enterprise deepwater drillship at the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon platform disaster in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. |
The exploration plan proposes further appraisal drilling in BP's Kaskida field in the Gulf of Mexico, a 2006 discovery that could hold up to 3 billion barrels of oil. An early appraisal well in 2009 confirmed oil was present in the field.
The field is in the highly touted Lower Tertiary trend in the Gulf of Mexico, a huge 300-mile (482-km) swath across the basin that is estimated to hold up to 15 billion barrels of oil, the largest oil trend in the U.S. since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay was discovered the late 1960s.
In the days after the BP oil spill, some analysts questioned BP's future in the U.S. offshore drilling arena.
But the government has stressed that BP will go through the same review process as any other company. Last week, a drilling official said BP will not be barred from participating in an upcoming offshore oil and gas lease sale.
Congressman Edward Markey, a vocal critic of BP in the aftermath of the spill, said the government may be welcoming the company back to the Gulf too soon.
