BP announces new deepwater drill standards
BP (LON:BP.) announced today that it will implement a new set of deepwater oil and gas drilling standards for its operations in the US Gulf of Mexico.
The move - detailed in a letter to the director of the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement - is aimed at demonstrating the company's commitment to safe and reliable operations.
The company said that the voluntary performance standards go beyond existing regulatory obligations and reflect the company's determination to apply lessons it learned from the Deepwater Horizon accident and subsequent oil spill.
"BP's commitment in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon incident is not only to restore the economic and environmental conditions among the affected areas of the Gulf Coast, but also to apply what we have learned to improve the way we operate," said BP group chief executive Bob Dudley. "We believe the commitments we have outlined today will promote greater levels of safety and preparedness in deepwater drilling."
The new voluntary standards will see BP use, and will required contractors to use, subsea blowout preventers equipped with no fewer than two blind shear rams and a casing shear ram on all drilling rigs under contract to the company for deepwater service operating in dynamic position mode.
In addition, each time a subsea blowout preventer from a moored or dynamically-positioned drilling rig is brought to the surface, and testing and maintenance on the blowout preventer are conducted, BP will require that a third party verifies that the testing and maintenance of the blowout preventer is performed in accordance with manufacturer recommendations and industry-recommended practice.
The company will also require that laboratory testing of cement slurries for primary cementing of casing and exposed hydrocarbon-bearing zones relating to drilling operations of deepwater wells be conducted or witnessed by a BP engineer competent to evaluate such laboratory testing, or a competent third party.
Meanwhile, BP's Oil Spill Response Plan will include information about enhanced measures for responding to a spill in open water, near-shore response and shoreline spill response based on lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
At 13:38pm today, BP's share price was unchanged at 458 pence.
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