Just 83 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion launched the Gulf of Mexico into chemically-induced chaos, the U.S. Interior Department announced some much needed safety strictures on offshore oil and gas platforms, in the form of a temporary moratorium.

(Photo:  Mike Baird via Flickr.)

Drilling operations on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), which use undersea and surface blowout preventers (BOPs), will now be suspended, and new permit applications denied by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), “when activities ‘pose a threat of serious, irreparable, or immediate harm or damage,” through November 30, 2010.

“More than eighty days into the BP oil spill,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, “a pause on deepwater drilling is essential and appropriate to protect communities, coasts, and wildlife from the risks that deepwater drilling currently pose.”

Of course, this will have a substantial economic impact on the offshore drilling industry.  Thousands of jobs are directly or tangentially dependent on deepwater operations.

Operators will have to meet a number of safety requirements before they will be allowed to continue running their rigs.

Like BP’s Deepwater Horizon, many platforms on the OCS reach more than a mile to the ocean floor, where astronomical pressures and subfreezing temperatures complicate emergency response capability, and where it has become excruciatingly clear that the oil industry has ventured beyond the prudent realm of public safety. 

According to Secretary Salazar, this new temporary moratorium will allow time for,

1.  Determining the “root causes” of the Deepwater Horizon incident.
2.  Assessing resources available for “wild well intervention and blowout containment.”
3.  “Submission of evidence by operators demonstrating that they have the ability to respond effectively…”

The chief goal is to better prepare all operators to handle a situation similar to BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  The current response has tied up resources from all over the region, much like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have done to our nation’s military reserves.

In accordance with his responsibility to maintain safe activities on the OCS, Salazar said,

I am basing my decision on evidence that grows every day of the industry’s inability in the deepwater to contain a catastrophic blowout, respond to an oil spill, and to operate safely.

Almost a month ago, President Obama boldly dubbed the Gulf oil gusher “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.”  If that’s true (and it is highly debatable) then this action from DOI is long overdue. 

In May, the Obama administration had previously attempted to suspend operations deeper than 500 feet (33 wells) in the Gulf and to block new permits.  On June 22, that moratorium was overturned by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans.  Feldman argued that the imposition was arbitrary, saying,

An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country,

While he dwelt on the immediate economic impact, however, the Judge seemed not to realize the real and imminent gravity of safety discrepancies in OCS drilling. 

(Containment contingency diagram.  Image:  Deepwater Horizon Response.)

What may be arbitrary is the ocean depth cutoff of 500 feet, specified in Obama’s earlier moratorium, which DOI’s recent decision does not emphasize.

Rather, the new suspensions are based on the types of equipment used on the rigs, which ought to provide more precise criteria for assessment and compliance.