Salazar Session Disappoints Gulf Drillers
Date: 23-Nov-10
Country: U.S.
Author: Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe,
writing by Anna Driver
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar met with oil and gas companies that work in the Gulf of Mexico's shallow waters on Monday, but the talks did nothing to jump start drilling activity as the industry had hoped.
The sector has complained bitterly that that government's deepwater drilling moratorium, put in place in May after BP Plc's Macondo well disaster, effectively halted drilling in shallower waters.
The moratorium was lifted in October, but companies have said the Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is still far too slow issuing drilling permits under new safety regulations.
"We tried to tell the secretary that we can't afford to let this go on another six months," said Jim Noe, executive director of the trade group Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition. "We got the same rhetoric, same platitudes, no commitments and no promises."
Salazar said he was encouraged that operators are moving quickly to comply with new regulations and promised to sit down again with the industry in December.
The meeting was a response to U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu's decision to drop a hold on the Obama Administration's nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget.
"I am extremely disappointed that Secretary Salazar's presentation failed to provide regulatory certainty and a clear path for speeding up the process of issuing drilling permits," Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, said in a statement.
The government has approved 16 new shallow water applications for permits to drill and 48 revised applications for permits for existing wells submitted since June 8. There are four pending applications, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Only one permit for a new deepwater well has been issued since the moratorium was lifted.
"They are just prolonging an already bad situation," Todd Hornbeck, chief executive officer of oil field services firm Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc. "The meeting was just more of the same," he said, describing it as nothing more than a photo-opportunity.
(Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
