Oil drilling in Gulf of Mexico resumes if BP petition gets OK

Oil Drilling by BP in Gulf of Mexico to Resume

Oil drilling by petroleum giant BP in the Gulf of Mexico may resume soon if a request is granted by U.S. authorities. The plan comes barely one year after an oil rig operated by BP exploded and caused a massive oil spill.

The incident damaged the safety record of BP which is facing a multitude of lawsuits stemming from the Deepwater Horizon incident. Among them are criminal and civil suits to be filed by the U.S. Justice Department against BP. The DOJ is yet to complete its investigation into the accident at BP's Macondo well and oil spill of some 4.9 million barrels of oil.

BP is trying to revive its oil drilling operations at ten sites around the Gulf of Mexico while promising to implement stricter safety mechanisms to prevent accidents. The company's petition may be granted as soon as next month but only for existing sites for oil drilling.

The decision whether to give BP permission to resume oil drilling will be a test for the Obama administration which is trying to rev up domestic exploration and production to lessen dependence on imported oil, while making oil firms accountable for their operations.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has allowed additional deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico recently, including permitting Royal Dutch Shell to start drilling off the coast of Louisiana.

Shell, along with Chevron, Exxon Mobil and BHP have resumed drilling on the condition that they will observe stricter safety practices. Officials have said that these oil companies have satisfied new safety requirements before they were permitted to resume oil drilling.

Posted by James Fried on Monday April 04 2011, 5:02 AM EST. Ref: NYT. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0