Drilling on a relief well at South Timbalier 220 in the US Gulf of Mexico began Sunday, August 4, using the Rowan EXL-3 jack-up rig, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) announced. On July 23, Walter Oil and Gas Corp…
The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) approved Walter Oil & Gas Corp.’s permit application to drill a relief well at South Timbalier 220 in the US Gulf of Mexico, using the Rowan EXL-3 jack-up rig. The well is expected to be drilled on Thursday…
BSEE confirmed on July 12 that Energy Resource Technology, LLC (ERT) stopped the flow of natural gas from well No. 2 at Ship Shoal Block 225, Platform B. The flow from the well, located approximately 74 miles southwest of Port Fourchon, Louisana…
US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) Director James A. Watson will step down from the agency in order to join maritime class society ABS as its president and chief operating officer (COO) of the Americas Division, effective September 2…
Safety is a necessary practice for all operations, and new regulations for oversight seem to be missing some key components.The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) released its Safety and Environmental Management Systems…
Bureau Veritas Certification is pleased to announce its provisional accreditation as an official SEMS Audit Service Provider for the Center for Offshore Safety (COS). Originally introduced as recommended practice RP 75 in 1990, the Safety…
Former senator Salazar to return to Colorado Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (Photo: DOI)U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will resign his position at the end of March, the agency announced on 16 January 2013.As secretary…
Click to enlargeFigure 1. Permits in deepwater numbered 76 by end-2012, enabled by the MWCC system. Source: MWCC.In the wake of Macondo, something was needed to lower the risk of recurrence. BP had shown that, given enough time, a system to contain such a well-control incident could be built…
US Coast Guard PhotoA second worker has died of injuries sustained after a fire broke out on Black Elk Energy's production platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. announced on 23 November 2012.Baton…
As 2011 drew to a close, yet another Deepwater Horizon report surfaced, this time from the National Academy of Engineering. Russell McCulley reports on the findings, as well as other late-year news involving ongoing legal wrangling between BP and its Macondo contractors…
A fit-for-purpose capping stack designed to cope with Alaska’s environmental extremes will play a key role in the US Bureau of Safety & Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)-compliant containment system Shell Exploration & Production has put together…
In a perceptive and timely contribution to the ongoing Macondo debate, US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement director James Watson spelled out the key lessons learned from the disaster in a Houston Chronicle opinion piece last month…
BP has received approval from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for a supplemental exploration plan in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, the company’s first such approval since the April 2010 blowout and spill at its Macondo prospect and…
A week after the long-awaited release of a presidential commission’s report on the Macondo disaster, US Interior secretary Ken Salazar announced the latest moves in the reorganization of the agency that oversees offshore oil & gas activities…
Former federal prosecutor and Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich has been tapped to lead the troubled agency that oversees US offshore oil & gas leasing and regulatory compliance. Bromwich was sworn in as director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management…
