Those New Gulf Oil-Drilling Permits? Not So New
Of 14 permits submitted for initial exploratory drilling in the Gulf—drilling that would be, in other words, new—one has been withdrawn for modification and 13 are listed as “pending.”
On Monday, the Interior Department announced it had approved an exploration plan for Shell, also describing it as new:
This is the first new deepwater exploration plan approved since the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill.”
But later in the same press release we learn:
The plan is a supplemental exploration plan that proposes activities that were not included in an original exploration plan for the same lease – located in Shell’s Auger field – which was approved in 1985.”
A plan, too, is a long way from a permit. It describes proposed activities, and once the plan is approved, the applicant can apply for permits to carry out those activities, a process that can take, according to Milito, another decade.
Who’s wearing the black hats in this scene—and who’s wearing the white hats—depends on whether the beholder is green. Either way, for all of the chatter about new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, little has changed.
