The head of the federal agency overseeing offshore drilling indicated Tuesday that the moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) could be lifted in advance of its Nov. 30 deadline, an agency spokesman said.

Michael R. Bromwich, the newly appointed director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), successor to the old Minerals Management Service, told a group of reporters that his preference would be to lift the moratorium as soon as he “felt comfortable” that sufficient safety precautions were in place, said BOEMRE spokesman Nicholas Pardi.

“I think it’s everybody’s hope that we feel comfortable enough that the moratorium can be lifted significantly in advance of Nov. 30,” Bromwich said, according to the Houston Chronicle. The agency would require a “level of comfort” in three areas — drilling and workplace safety, spill containment and disaster response technology.

Bromwich’s briefing came in advance of the start of an eight-city fact-finding tour, which got under way in New Orleans last Wednesday. He is scheduled to hold hearings in Mobile, AL, and Pensacola, FL, this week. Bromwich said he will use the evidence collected during the hearings to recommend potential changes on the “scope or duration” of the suspension of deepwater drilling in the GOM.

The Obama administration halted drilling in the deepwater GOM in late May in response to the explosion aboard the BP plc-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, which sank off the southern coast of Louisiana in April (see NGI, May 31).

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a new moratorium on deepwater drilling in mid-July after the original moratorium was struck down three times in court — once by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and twice by the U.S. District Court in New Orleans.

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman said the Interior failed to justify its decision to impose a prolonged ban on deepwater drilling in the wake of the explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon rig, and essentially sought retribution against an entire industry for the actions of one company — BP. He rejected a bid by the administration to stay his decision (see NGI, June 28). The Fifth Circuit upheld Feldman’s ruling in July (see NGI, July 12).

The new moratorium leaves the door slightly ajar to the possibility of early removal of restrictions if industry provides assurance acceptable to the Interior secretary that adequate containment and response capabilities are in place, the National Ocean Industries Association pointed out last month. However, it said the problem for industry is that it is unclear what exactly it will take to convince the administration that such capability exists (see NGI, July 19).

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