Service firms challenge new moratorium

Hornbeck Offshore Services and several other oilfield services companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico have challenged the U.S. Department of the Interior’s new deepwater outer continental shelf drilling moratorium, announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar July 12.

In a July 26 filing with the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, the service companies said that the court should reject a request by Interior to lift an injunction against an earlier moratorium — in parallel with announcing the new moratorium, Interior had claimed that the appeal against the earlier moratorium was moot since, when issuing the new moratorium, Interior had rescinded the moratorium under appeal.

Interior cannot sidestep the appeal by simply issuing a new moratorium, the plaintiffs in the appeal told the court.

“The alleged ‘new’ moratorium issued by appellant Secretary Salazar on July 12, 2010, is a mirror image of the May 28th moratorium that already has been enjoined,” the plaintiffs said.

The earlier moratorium banned for six months all new drilling on the U.S. outer continental shelf in water more than 500 feet deep. The new moratorium bans until Nov. 30 all OCS drilling done from floating facilities and requiring the use of blowout preventers, in effect imposing the same drilling restrictions as the earlier moratorium, the plaintiffs said.

The plaintiffs originally appealed the May moratorium in Louisiana district court. But after a federal judge in that court imposed an injunction against the moratorium until the appeal was resolved, Interior appealed the injunction in the 5th Circuit court. A panel of 5th Circuit judges subsequently upheld the injunction.

—Alan Bailey