WASHINGTON — BP won approval from the Interior
Department to drill its first exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico
since the blowout of its Macondo well a year and a half ago touched off
the country’s worst offshore environmental disaster.
The
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said that BP met more
stringent safety requirements devised by the federal government in the
aftermath of the disaster. The company also planned to follow even
tougher voluntary standards that exceeded the government’s rules.
“This
permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer
and containment capability reviews,” said bureau director Michael R.
Bromwich.
At more than 6,000 feet, the proposed
well would be in deeper water than the Macondo well. It is part of the
company’s Kaskida prospect located in an area called the Keathley Canyon
about 250 miles south of Lafayette, La. The company submitted the
application to drill in January.
Cleanup of gulf
waters continues in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that
killed 11 workers and spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the
sea over several months.
Last week, the Interior
Department granted approval to a broader exploration plan from BP for
the Kaskida prospect based on its adherence to the agency’s new rules.
Environmentalists
have said that the new regulatory agency, the Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement, is better than its predecessor, the Minerals
Management Service, which had exercised uneven, sometimes lax oversight
of offshore energy projects, investigations showed.
But
they argue that more work needs to be done to improve offshore drilling
safety, including a redesign of blowout preventers and modernization of
cleanup procedures.
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