The voluntary effort, which involves building a set of modular containment equipment that would be kept on standby for emergency use, comes as oil companies seek to persuade the Obama administration to lift a temporary ban on deepwater drilling. The moratorium was imposed after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20 and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the gulf.
Officials said the spill served as a wake-up call for the industry, which had invested billions of dollars to develop oil and gas resources in ever-deeper waters offshore but neglected to devise spill-response technology that could be effective in thousands of feet of water.
Environmentalists, members of Congress and federal and state officials have already made it clear that the industry will face tougher regulations when drilling resumes. The emergency response plan is part of the oil industry’s effort to show it can improve its safety procedures and shape the inevitable rules of conduct that will be imposed.
The plan — which was put together by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell — incorporates many of the lessons that BP was forced to learn the hard way in trying to cap a gushing oil well 5,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.
The four companies said their initiative would seek to include all the companies involved in offshore drilling in the gulf, including BP. Their initial financing of $250 million each will be used to build a set of containment equipment, like underwater systems and pipelines, that will be able to deal with a variety of deepwater problems and can be deployed rapidly in the event of a spill.
The partners said it would take six months to get all the elements in place. The companies expect the system will be able to contain spills in water as deep as 10,000 feet and capture up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day, although that capacity could be increased if needed. by nytimes
Sponsored Link
0 comments:
Post a Comment