BP plc last Wednesday received a permit to drill in the Keathley Canyon of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), making it the first drilling permit approved for the producer since the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig and subsequent oil spill in April 2010 (see NGI, April 26, 2010).

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) approved the drilling permit less than a week after its sister agency, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), preliminarily approved BP’s 214-page exploration blueprint to drill four deepwater wells in GOM’s Keathley Canyon off the southern coast of Louisiana. The exploration blueprint identifies all of the activities that BP plans to undertake in the Keathley Canyon region.

The permit allows BP Exploration & Production Co. to drill one well in its Kaskida prospect in Keathley Canyon, located 246 miles south of Lafayette, LA, in 6,034 feet of water. BP acquired the leases in Keathley Canyon Blocks 292 and 336 in 1997 and 2003, according to the Interior agencies. BP will have to file separate permits to drill the other three wells.

“BP has met all of the enhanced safety requirements that we have implemented and applied consistently over the past year. In addition, BP has adhered to voluntary standards that go beyond the agency’s regulatory requirements,” said BSEE Director Michael Bromwich. “This permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer and containment capability reviews.”

Bromwich said BP has contracted with Marine Well Containment Co. to use its capping stack to stop the flow of oil, should a blowout occur.

Earlier this month Bromwich said that Interior considered preventing BP from bidding in the first post-Macondo lease auction in the GOM slated for December but in the end decided against it (see NGI, Oct. 17).

Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, called the BOEM-BSEE permit approval premature. Markey, who also objects to BP being allowed to participate in the December lease sale, noted that BP “hasn’t paid the fines they owe for their spill, yet BP is being given back the keys to drill in the Gulf.”

The Department of Justice this month issued its first citations to BP, as well as contractors Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co. for their roles in the tragic spill. Fines are expected to be assessed.

While this is BP’s first permit to be approved since the spill, BSEE officials said the agency has approved 165 permits for 46 unique deepwater wells requiring subsea containment to date.

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