The European Union backed away from imposing a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in European waters Wednesday, instead recommending new legislation to enforce tough new EU-wide safety standards for the offshore oil and gas industry.
The European Union backed away from imposing a moratorium on deepwater
oil drilling in European waters Wednesday, instead recommending new legislation
to enforce tough new EU-wide safety standards for the offshore oil and gas
industry.
Guenther Oettinger, the EU's Commissioner for Energy, had repeatedly called for
a temporary ban on offshore drilling in sensitive areas until the causes of the
Gulf of Mexico
oil disaster had been fully investigated.
But the idea was dismissed by the
U.K.
,
which argued its domestic oil and gas industry has one of the most robust
safety and regulatory regimes in the world. The European Parliament also
rejected the proposal in a vote last week. The
U.S.
lifted its own moratorium on deepwater drilling in the
Gulf
of Mexico
on Tuesday, slightly earlier than expected.
Instead of a ban, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, recommended
Wednesday a "single new piece of specific legislation for offshore oil and
gas activities," including criteria for granting drilling permits and
control of rigs. A formal proposal could be tabled early next year.
"Safety is non-negotiable," Oettinger said. "We have to make
sure that a disaster similar to the one in the
Gulf
of Mexico
will never happen in European waters. This is why
we propose that best practices already existing in
Europe
will
become the standard throughout the European Union."
Under the measures being put forward, member states issuing drilling licenses
would have to ensure that oil companies met key EU requirements, had
contingency plans in place and the financial means available to pay for any
environmental damage caused by accidents. In the event of a spill, companies
would also be responsible for cleaning up damage to the natural habitat up to
200 nautical miles from the coast. Meanwhile, equipment such as blowout
preventers would have to meet the highest safety standards.
Such measures could have repercussions for the European oil industry. There are
nearly 900 offshore installations operating in the EU, with more than half in
the
UK
. Most
oil exploration is carried out in relatively shallow waters, but oil companies
are increasingly moving into the deep offshore. Exploration is planned west of
Shetlands in the UK North Sea and in the
Black Sea
off
the coast of
Romania
.
After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in the
Gulf
of Mexico
in April, killing 11 and triggering the worst
offshore oil spill in
U.S.
history, the EU launched a safety review of all oil and gas operations in
European waters.
The review revealed that such activities were governed by a patchwork of
different safety regimes which "leaves areas of legal uncertainty with
regard to companies' obligations and responsibilities," the commission
said.
While eschewing an outright call for a ban, the commission called on member
states to consider suspending the licensing of new oil and gas operations until
Europe's offshore safety regimes had been fully assessed.
That provoked an angry response from Oil & Gas UK, the British oil
industry's main trade body. Its head, Malcolm Webb, called the idea of a
suspension "wholly unjustified and inappropriate."
He also said any plan to impose prescriptive EU-wide safety regulation would
"undermine the advanced and highly sophisticated regulatory regimes
currently working so well, for example in the
United
Kingdom
,
Norway
and
the
Netherlands
."
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