President Obama May Allow Shallow Water Oil Drilling to Resume

The Obama administration recently announced that they would begin opening back up drilling in the shallower coastal waters, once they have finalized new regulations. However, is drilling in shallow waters any safer than deep water oil exploration? And what sort of regulations need to be put in place, and does the administration have enough time to figure that out?

The Ixtoc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which happened on June 3^rd, 1979, occurred not in the deep ocean where the BP oil spill continues to pump tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the water each day, but in relatively shallow waters at a depth of only 160 feet. And it took many months for relief wells to finally stop the flow of oil.

Could a disaster such as the Ixtoc oil spill happen again? It is hard to see why not with an estimated 800,000 costal oil rigs worldwide, and with many of them in the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, the president is gambling that such events are rare, and has weighed putting people back to work versus the small chance of a disaster.

However, the Deepwater Horizon accident occurred during the exploratory phase of oil drilling, the very take the Deepwater Horizon was undertaking when it exploded. Had the blowout not occurred, the rig would have moved onto its next site after capping the well. While certainly jobs will be lost if shallow water oil exploration is temporarily ceased, approximately 40,000, is now the right time to continue with the process hoping that there won't be another accident? This was the sort of calculated risk which got the administration into trouble in the first place.

The idea was that the oil companies would be able to police themselves, and that coastal drilling was safe because a major accident hadn't happened for decades. Nonetheless, the new drilling regulations are expected to be a major improvement over past practices by including the use of independent inspectors which would oversee the drilling process. Fortunately, the White House has stood firm with its ordered six month moratorium on deep sea exploratory drilling.

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703303904575292210472764880.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill