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Regulators see oil containment as key Proposed Arctic offshore drilling regulations will mandate capping, containment systems; panelists reflect on oil spill lesson learned Alan Bailey Petroleum News
A proposed new rule for drilling safety in the Arctic offshore will include a requirement that all drilling operations will have well capping and oil containment systems available, to prevent oil flowing into the water should a well loss-of-control incident occur, Mark Fesmire, Alaska regional director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, commented during a panel discussion on Arctic offshore drilling safety in Washington, D.C., on April 17.
William Brown, chief environmental officer for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, said that the rule, being jointly developed by BOEM and BSEE, should be out as a proposal by the end of the year. He said that it is no longer acceptable to have to improvise the bringing in of containment systems and other equipment during the response to an incident.
Resources for the Future, an independent research organization, organized the panel discussion as part of a seminar reviewing what has been learned from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Fran Ulmer, chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission and a member of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill chaired the panel, which included several government officials and other people with knowledge of Arctic offshore drilling issues.
Ulmer, commenting on the importance of learning from past disasters, asked the panelists what has actually changed since Deepwater Horizon.
Worst-case planning Fesmire said that the Gulf of Mexico disaster had resulted in recognition of the importance of planning for worst-case oil spills and that BSEE is now taking account of worst-case volumes in its contingency plans. Fesmire listed a series of new regulations that BSEE has brought into effect in the aftermath of the disaster, including a new drilling safety rule, a production safety rule and new regulations for mandated safety and environmental management systems. BSEE has also formed the Ocean Energy Safety Institute, an organization that will coordinate assistance in the use of emerging technologies.
A proposed rule aimed at improving the reliability of well control equipment should be released for public comment later this year, Fesmire said. Fesmire also commented on the importance of engaging with other Arctic nations, saying that BSEE has, for example, been taking a lead in working with regulators in other countries on the important issue of oil source control and containment.
Transition from fossil fuels? Jacqueline Savitz, vice president U.S. oceans for Oceana, an environmental organization, expressed surprise at how quickly drilling had been allowed to restart in the Gulf of Mexico. She said that not much had changed since Deepwater Horizon and that, in particular, people have not yet developed a plan for transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner and safer energy sources.
Shell’s actions in its Arctic exploration program have demonstrated that people are not yet ready to drill in the Arctic offshore — a court decision upholding an appeal against the environmental impact statement for the 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale can provide an opportunity to step back and again look at the risks, Savitz said.
Christopher Smith, principal deputy assistant for fossil energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, said that his agency sees the need for a wide range of energy sources. The Department of Energy is particularly interested in spill prevention he said, commenting that the oil industry should use the same approach to safety as the aviation and nuclear industries.
Spill response skepticism Beth Kerttula, a fellow in the Center of Ocean Solutions, Stanford University, and a former House minority leader in the Alaska Legislature, expressed extreme skepticism about the possibility of being able to respond to any kind of oil spill in the Arctic offshore. The emphasis in the Arctic must be on spill prevention, she said.
And urgent action is needed to address Arctic offshore oil spill risks, not just because of oil exploration, but also because of the increasing volume of Arctic shipping traffic, she said. Kerttula emphasized the importance of listening to the people of the Arctic when planning Arctic activities.
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