BP seeks to resume drilling in Gulf of Mexico
April 4th, 2011 - 2:09 pm ICT by ANILondon, Apr.4 (ANI): British petroleum giant BP plc is seeking permission from US regulators, to resume drilling at 10 existing deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, in exchange for adhering to stricter safety and supervisory rules.
The petition to The Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Rregulation and Enforcement comes 15 months after a rig BP had leased there exploded, causing a huge oil spill creating an environmental disaster and killing 11 workers.
BP is spending about 41 billion dollars on cleaning up the spill and to cover damages. Investigations into the spill continue with the US authorities examining testimony from Tony Hayward, the former chief executive, and others as they consider bringing legal action.
BP had been pushing for these wells before the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Since then, the Obama administration had issued a suspension on deepwater drilling.
The company is waiting for final sign-off by the US authorities, and hopes to restart the wells by the summer reportedly.
BP will agree to give government overseers 24-hour access to its drilling operations, if granted the permit., but environmentalists feel that it is not enough.
“It’s hard to see how such monitoring will adequately mitigate the dangers of deepwater drilling,” Fox News quoted Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK, as saying. (ANI)
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