US seeks to ease offshore oil wells rule

washington — The Trump administration on Friday proposed relaxing a rule on offshore oil wells that was finalised after the 2010 BP disaster and crude spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as part of its effort to slash regulations it considers burdensome on industry.

The exact revisions to the 2016 well control rule proposed by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), an office of the Department of Interior, will be known this week when they are published in the Federal Register.

But the proposed changes will include removing “prescriptive requirements” for real-time monitoring of offshore drilling facilities and allow the oil producers to use company-specific approaches, a BSEE fact sheet said.

The proposed revisions will also seek to minimise what BSEE says are duplicative notifications of rig movements that operators are required to send to the agency.

In addition, independent third-party groups would be allowed to do some certifications and verifications on parts of blow-out preventers, which seek to stop the uncontrolled releases of crude, according to the fact sheet. — Reuters