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BSEE issues final safety systems rule
New rule for offshore production systems rolls back or revises some Obama administration regulations deemed to be too restrictive Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has published its final rule for offshore oil and gas production safety systems. The new rule, which was originally proposed last December, rolls back or modifies some of the offshore safety regulations introduced by the Obama administration in 2016, in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. BSEE says that the changes will reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens while ensuring continued safe and environmentally responsible operations. Of 484 individual provisions in the original 2016 rule, the agency determined that 84 were appropriate for revision or deletion. The new rule also adds seven new provisions, BSEE says.
The rule applies to safety and pollution prevention equipment, subsea safety devices and safety device testing associated with the production of oil and gas on the federal outer continental shelf.
Examples of the changes to the original rule include the addition of gas lift shutdown valves to the list of equipment types covered by the regulations, and the replacement of a requirement for certification of safety equipment by a third-party organization by a different procedure - under the new procedure there are requirements for device design testing, and an operator would need to hold documentation describing how the operator has ensured that the safety equipment works as required, with third-party review and certification required if a device is moved from one location to another. According to the Federal Register entry for the new rule, the rule also clarifies some of the requirements in the original rule.
Deepwater Horizon recommendations The agency says that it has compared the provisions in its final rule with the recommendations and reports that came from 14 different organization in response to Deepwater Horizon. The regulatory changes encompassed in the new rule “will not contradict or ignore any of those recommendation, nor will they alter any provision of the 2016 rule in a way that would make the result inconsistent with those recommendations,” BSEE says.
“BSEE has incorporated industry innovation, best science and best practices in the Oil and Gas Production Safety Systems Rule to ensure safety and environmental sustainability,” said BSEE Director Scott Angelle when announcing the new rule. “When critical energy resources are produced safely and responsibly, we build a stronger energy future for the nation. We can achieve robust energy production only if operations are conducted in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner.”
The Federal Register entry for the rule says that BSEE received 733 sets of comments on the proposed rule that was issued in December, with some of those comments having more than 60,000 signatures added.
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