And they're off! They just couldn't wait, not even until the last spill
has been cleaned up. It's just straight back to it, profit before common
sense. Our addiction to ancient sunlight is going to be a tough one to
break I can tell.....
Louisiana court overturns Barack Obama's ban on oil drilling in Gulf
Judgment may allow BP to resume offshore oil exploration
[Workers clean up oil on a beach in Grand isle, Louisiana]
BP is free to resume deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after a
Louisiana <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/louisiana> judge overturned
Barack Obama <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barack-obama> 's ban
imposed in the wake of the worst environmental disaster in US history.
The company operates at least one of the 33 rigs which have been idle
since the moratorium last month, according to industry data.
BP declined to confirm the location of its rigs or whether it intended
to resume deepwater drilling in the Gulf.
The ruling could also lead to further legal challenges by the oil
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/oil> industry against the White
House's handling of the crisis. The government has imposed a nationwide
ban on issuing offshore drilling permits which could also come under
attack in the courts.
Yesterday, Louisiana-based judge Martin Feldman ruled that the federal
government's six-month blanket moratorium in the Gulf was unjustified
because it assumed that all deepwater drilling was as dangerous as BP's.
"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," Feldman said in his ruling, according to the Associated Press
news agency.
The ruling represents a victory for the oil industry and for state
politicians. Both groups had argued the ban would result in tens of
thousands of job losses across Louisiana if it stayed in place. Lawyers
representing the oil services companies, who brought the lawsuit against
the US federal government in New Orleans, warned a whole "ecosystem of
businesses" was at risk.
The White House said last night it would seek an immediate injunction
against the ruling. "Continuing drilling at these depths without knowing
what happened does not make sense," said spokesman Robert Gibbs.
But Camilo K Salas III, a New Orleans-based attorney, said Obama may
privately welcome the decision. "Now they can say: 'We did what we had
to do but the judge overruled us.' That way they look good for trying to
stop the drilling but the economy is not damaged."
Obama has faced intense domestic criticism for not taking control of the
crisis earlier and putting too much trust in BP's ineffective attempts
to tackle the spill.
BP has made recently huge discoveries of oil and gas in the deep waters
of the Gulf of Mexico which require further drilling and development.
In September last year, it announced that the Tiber well, drilled to a
depth of more than 3,050 metres (10,000 feet) in the Gulf, making it the
world's deepest exploration well to date, could hold as much as 3bn
barrels of oil and gas. It dwarfs the Macondo prospect, where the
Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling, at 1,500 metres and containing about
50m barrels.
Oil companies are likely to wait until the outcome of any appeal is
known before resuming deepwater drilling.
Asked about whether BP would resume deepwater drilling in the Gulf, a
spokesman said: "We have no comment on this case or decision, as we are
not a party to the case.
"Most of the fleet of rigs we have under contract are responding to the
spill. We don't discuss publicly our drilling plans and the disposition
of those assets."
According to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, last
month BP had in place one operational rig affected by the moratorium.
Officials from the much maligned and now defunct regulator, the MMS,
were reported as saying that BP had two in the Gulf. Shell had the most,
at seven, according to the association, while Texas-based Anadarko
Petroleum, BP's partner on the stricken Macondo well, operated three of
the 33 affected.
Environmental groups vowed to appeal against yesterday's ruling. The
Sierra Club, one of the groups which gave testimony in Monday's
hearings, said in a statement: "We haven't even stopped the massive flow
of oil yet, let alone begun to respond to the damage it has wrought.
It's like there's been a car accident and we're talking about how to get
the vehicle on the road again while the victim is still bleeding."
Interior secretary Ken Salazar imposed the ban on 27 May, more than a
month after the accident took place.
He said that the ban was necessary to allow new safety procedures to be
implemented and a thorough investigation of what caused the accident to
be carried out. But Salazar was forced to apologise after officials said
that the seven independent experts brought in to peer review their
report into safety practices in the Gulf endorsed the moratorium.
The scientists and engineers argue that shutting down drilling an
operation which led to the explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig
is actually more dangerous than allowing it to continue.
Here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/23/louisiana-court-overtu\
rns-drilling-ban
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/23/louisiana-court-overt\
urns-drilling-ban>
