BSEE extends comment period for safety rule

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, said Sept. 26 that it is extending by an additional 45 days the public comment period for a proposed offshore safety systems rule. Comments must now be filed by Dec. 5, BSEE said.

The proposed rule relates to safety regulations for systems such as subsea pumping, foam firefighting equipment, emergency shutdown systems and gas lift used in oil production facilities on the U.S. outer continental shelf.

The rule was originally published on Aug. 22 with a closing date of Oct. 21 for public comments. But BSEE has received “multiple requests from various industry representatives to extend the comment period” and the agency determined that an additional 45-day comment period was warranted, BSEE said. With no major revision having been made to the relevant regulations since they were published in 1988, it is now necessary to update the regulations to take account of new technologies such as the use of subsea well trees, BSEE said.

“These new technologies are more complex than those that were traditionally used for shallow water drilling on shelf areas, where equipment was traditionally placed on the rig itself, rather than on the seafloor,” BSEE said. “With the shift to deeper water in the past decade, more specialized requirements and regulations are required for these newer and emerging safety technologies.”

—Alan Bailey