Get ready to drill: Deepwater permits likely in "next several weeks" says Bromwich

Federal regulators could issue the first new deep-water drilling permits since last April's Gulf oil spill “in the next several weeks,” the nation's top offshore drilling regulator told Houston Chronicle editors and reporters today.

Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, previously had projected the first permits by the end of the second quarter.

The hold-up for the five deep-water permits that are pending is mainly related to industry finishing the construction of equipment for a spill containment system, Bromwich told the Chronicle editorial board.

An industry consortium formed by oil majors including Exxon Mobil, Shell and Chevron is expected to conduct testing later this month on a capping stack that could handle a Macondo-like blowout. A second well containment system being developed by Helix Corp. is expected to be ready by the end of March.

Bromwich is in town to speak at a symposium on offshore drilling at Rice University's Baker Institute. Here's a copy of his prepared remarks.

Thirty-one shallow water drilling permits have been approved since last June, while there are currently nine shallow- water permits pending, Bromwich said.That's not the pace industry would like, but he said no more than 15 permits have been in line waiting for review since the Macondo blowout and oil spill. BOEMRE actually shifted staff to the permit review process last year to speed up the process, but industry hasn't applied for shallow-water permits at a higher pace.

Bromwich denied suspicions by the oil industry and its supporters that the pace of permitting reflects a desire by the White House to stop all offshore drilling.

“I have very little contact with the White House,” Bromwich said. “They're interested in what I do, but they can't lean on me to do political things.”

If anything, he said, the pace of permitting may have been slowed by BOEMRE field personnel who are extra cautious about making decisions in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon accident, for fear of making a decision that could expose them to criminal liability.

Bromwich, a criminal lawyer, said he wants to reassure employees they need not fear prosecution if they perform their duties conscientiously.

“That's something I'm going to stress to them in a meeting next week,” where he will speak to the approximately 500 BOEMRE workers along the Gulf Coast who take in the drilling applications.

The joint BOEMRE/U.S. Coast Guard investigation of the failed blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon is still ongoing and shoudl be done by the end of February, with a report on it to be issued toward the end of March. That will mean the next hearing of that investigatory panel will not happen until April at the earlier, Bromwich said.