The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has announced new measures to enhance offshore rig worker safety and rescind loosened Trump-era regulations.
The so-called “final well control rule” from the BSEE builds upon the historic regulatory reforms implemented by the US Department of the Interior in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and resulting oil spill that killed 11 people and caused billions of dollars in environmental damage and economic loss to coastal communities.
“This rule strengthens testing and performance requirements for blowout preventers and other well control equipment, provides for timely and robust analyses and investigations into failures, and clarifies reporting requirements to ensure we have appropriate visibility over information and data critical to maintaining well integrity,” said BSEE Director Kevin Sligh.
In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon incident, BSEE adopted several recommendations from multiple investigation teams to improve the safety of offshore energy operations, leading to the publication of the 2016 Well Control Rule.
In May 2019, during the Trump administration, BSEE published a rule that weakened certain safety provisions. This new rule incorporates key lessons learned from operator experience, incident data regarding blowout preventers, and well integrity since the publication of the 2016 rule and revises or rescinds certain modifications that were made in the 2019 rule.
The finalized revisions will require blowout preventer systems (BOPs) to be able to always close and seal the wellbore to the well’s maximum anticipated surface pressure, except as otherwise specified in the BOP system requirement section of the regulations.
The rule also requires failure data to be reported to both a designated third party and BSEE and the failure analysis and investigations to start within 90 days of an incident.
Surface BOPs on existing floating facilities will have to follow the dual shear ram requirements when replacing an entire BOP stack while ROVs must be capable of opening and closing each shear ram on a BOP. Furthermore, the operator must be able to provide BOP test results to BSEE within 72 hours after completion of the tests if BSEE is unable to witness testing.
