U.S. Issues New Rules on Offshore Drilling
John M. Broder
The New York Times
9/30/2010
WASHINGTON — The Interior Department tightened its rules on offshore oil and gas operations on Thursday but left in place the moratorium on deepwater drilling that has left oil executives frustrated and Gulf Coast officials fuming.
The new rules — governing well casing and cementing, blowout preventers, safety certification, emergency response and worker training — provide offshore drillers with clarity on the terms under which drilling will resume when the current freeze ends.
The main conditions had already been telegraphed by the department in a safety report issued in May and in two notices to offshore operators handed down in June in response to the blowout of a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20…
…Interior Secretary Ken Salazar presented the new rules in a speech Thursday morning, calling them a fundamental change that will guide all future leasing and development decisions in the gulf, the Arctic and elsewhere.
“We are raising the bar for safety, oversight and environmental protection at every stage of the drilling process,” he said in the speech, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars here.
The rules take effect immediately under emergency rule-making powers…
Read the entire article at the New York Times.
Read also at GatewayPundit, Cuba Will Drill Deeper Than BP Off Coast of Florida:
…Because of current U.S. policy, U.S. companies are prohibited from developing oil fields that lie in Cuban waters and come within 50 miles of Florida. However, Cuba is exploring and potentially developing these oil fields, estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to possess more oil than the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and Cuba is partnering with China and other countries, such as Spain, France, and Canada.
The Castro Regime will begin drilling off the coast of Florida next year and will go deeper than the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April The Miami Herald reported…
Read the whole thing.
Update: Babalu blog has something to say about Cuba, oil, and America’s moratorium/regulations.
