By now you've read or heard that, amid industry skepticism, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar yesterday lifted the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. At the very least, there remain lots of zigs and zags that producers like Chevron
The moratorium on drilling in water depths exceeding 500 feet was instituted following an April explosion and fire aboard Transocean's
As Salazar said in a news conference, "The policy position that we are articulating today is that we are open for business." But that hardly means that an armada of deepwater rigs will be digging for oil by week's end, or perhaps even prior to the end of 2010.
Before drillers and their Big Oil customers can plunge into the deep at full bore, they must conform to a host of new federal rules -- with additions on the way. Included will be the requirement that the operator's CEO must certify compliance with all regulations. And independent engineers must inspect and certify each well's blowout preventer and cementing standards. I've mentioned it before, but I think as makers of blowout preventers, Cameron
So you'd think there might have been dancing in the streets of New Orleans and other places affected by the drilling stoppage. And there might have been among the up to 12,000 workers estimated to have watched their jobs evaporate -- at least temporarily -- during the stoppage. But there is also is a drillship full of concern about what the removal of the deepwater halt really means for the industry.
Indeed, companies have experienced a severe slowdown in the permitting process in the shallow water in the face of the moratorium that was technically limited to depths deeper than 500 feet. And as Todd Hornbeck, CEO of Hornbeck Offshore Services
Nevertheless, the road to normalcy in the Gulf apparently has at begun. And moratorium or not, Fools would be well advised to closely watch the Gulfs future developments in regards to the changing global energy picture.