Oil Spill Response Techniques News

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) issued three significant documents addressing response, enforcement, and safety issues related to offshore operations in August 2012. Specifically, BSEE issued (1) new guidance concerning regional Oil Spill Response Plans (“OSRPs”), (2) formalized policy addressing direct enforcement actions against contractors engaged in offshore activities, and (3) a Final Rule implementing new safety measures related to well control operations occurring on the outer continental shelf (“OCS”). The following is a summary of these new developments.

The Environmental Audit Committee has published the report of its inquiry into Protecting the Arctic. "The oil companies should come clean and admit that dealing with an oil spill in the icy extremes of the Arctic would be exceptionally difficult. The infrastructure to mount a big clean-up operation is simply not in place and conventional oil spill response techniques have not been proven to work in such severe conditions. Drilling is only currently feasible in the Arctic during a short summer window when it is relatively ice-free. The report also looks at the effect that climate change is having on the Arctic. It warns that a collapse in summer Arctic sea-ice…