WASHINGTON — The Interior Department, moving closer to lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling, issued new rules Thursday aimed at improving the safety of deep-water drilling operations in the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Administration officials and independent experts said the rules were an important step toward resumption of deep-water exploration, which was halted in response to the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 men and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil over 86 days.
The two new rules, “the drilling safety rule” and “the workplace safety rule,” essentially codify the recommendations that the Interior Department issued in June to oil and gas companies drilling in the gulf.
Testimony by workers who were on the Deepwater Horizon has raised questions about how the runaway well was drilled, and the drilling safety rule tightens standards for the use of drilling fluids, well-bore casing and cementing in an exploratory well.
The rule also has explicit requirements to improve the efficacy of blow-out preventers, five-story-tall industrial structures that sit atop wells and are meant to shut them off in case of an explosion. BP’s blow-out preventer failed to shear the drilling pipe, which resulted in oil gushing from the well.
The workplace safety rule requires oil companies to rethink their worst-case scenarios for accidents and spills and to come up with viable plans for dealing with them.
