US Offshore Regulator to Unveil Tougher Environmental Safeguards
The U.S. government agency created after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill plans in coming weeks to unveil tougher financial requirements for offshore oil producers aimed at protecting taxpayers from the risk of cleaning up abandoned oil rigs, an agency executive told Reuters. Under the new guidelines, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will demand additional guarantees to cover producers' legal obligation to plug offshore wells and dismantle rigs in the Outer Continental Shelf once they have extracted oil and gas…
"Safe Drilling in the Far North is a Fantasy": Greenpeace
“Even a cursory glance at Shell’s oil spill response plans shows that the company could not deal with an accident in these remote and challenging waters, and we’re disappointed that the court ruled in Shell’s favour. Despite admitting that a spill in the frozen north is inevitable, Shell operated with a response plan that relied on untested technology and equipment totally incapable of working effectively in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. The company’s claim that it could handle a worst-case spill in the Chukchi Sea is absurd. “Safe drilling in the far north is a fantasy.