More Tweaks Than Transformation in Rewrite of Well Control Rule

Abstract

The sound bites after the release of the final version of the revised US offshore well control rule suggested big changes were coming soon. A statement from the environmental group Public Citizen said, “The Trump administration is once again putting corporate profits over safety by gutting the primary offshore drilling safety measure put in place to prevent the next massive oil spill.” In a speech covering the administration’s record on offshore regulation, Scott Angelle, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), said that promoting “home-grown domestic energy is what we are going to be about.” Both comments were delivered shortly after the release of the final version of a revised well control rule, which clearly is a hot-button issue for many. It drew more than 100,000 comments from the industry and citizens, many of whom sent notes opposing changes to the 2016 rule. It sounded about as earth-shaking as regulatory reform can be. The reality, however, was more tweaks than transformation. “There were not any breathtaking issues that everyone was gobsmacked by,” said Glenn Legge, a Houston attorney with the firm HFW. Still, the lawyer who advises offshore energy clients on regulation, said his clients are keenly interested in the changes in the notice. “Everybody is looking at the changing regulatory scheme and trying to assess it and address those issues,” he said. Evolving Technology There is no predicting how the rule that went into effect in mid-July will ultimately play out. The variables include the enforcement priorities of regulators and interpretations of hundreds of pages of regulations that could take offshore drilling regulation in unexpected directions. A look at changes in three high-profile sections of the revised rule, though, suggest caution by the BSEE staffers charged with revising the 2016 rule. That version of the well control rule included major changes based on investigations of the blowout that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon rig, killed 11 workers, and triggered an oil spill that lasted for months. While energy growth is a priority for this administration, after making that point Angelle quickly added that, “No amount of money or oil production will ever be worth it to do it in an unsafe, non-environmentally sensitive way.” The changes are generally on the industry wish list, but many are clarifications of past rules or come with strings attached. For example, one rule will allow some operators to reduce the frequency of blowout preventer (BOP) pressure tests to every 21 days rather than every 14 days. But to qualify they must create a system to predict when equipment is likely to fail and study the cause of repeated failures. “We need to drive reliability. We are trying to drive performance by ensuring that the BOP stack is getting analyzed as much as possible,” said Fred Brink, the lead writer on the rule revision.