Incorporate the latest industry standards that establish minimum baseline requirements for the design, manufacture, repair, and maintenance of blowout preventers (BOP).
Require more controls over the maintenance and repair of BOPs.
Require more rigorous third party certification of the shearing capability of BOPs.
Request comments on a potential long-term requirement that a technology be installed to allow all equipment in the hole to be severed.
Require real-time monitoring capability for deepwater and high-temperature/high- pressure drilling activities.
Require the use of accepted engineering principles and establishes general performance criteria for drilling and completion equipment. The rules are now open for public comment and are expected to be issued later this year. Following the issue of the final rule, oil and gas companies will have three to seven years to completely comply with the rule. “Deepwater Horizon was the biggest environmental disaster in American history, and the Department of the Interior has rightly implemented the most significant safety reforms ever undertaken,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, director of public lands at the Center for American Progress, adding that the federal government “is making these safety improvements with no help from Congress and, all too often, resistance from an oil industry that wants to keep its costs low.” To view the fact sheet for the proposed rules, click here.