Regulators Extend 1,400 Deepwater Leases in Gulf of Mexico

United States regulators of oil-drilling leases have finally extended new leases to the majority of companies totaling nearly 1400 leases (including BP) whose operations were disrupted by either the Deepwater Horizon spill, or the subsequent drilling pan following the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) announced this week that they had laboriously approved around 97% of the lease extension requests that they have received, which they cited to be 1,381 of 1,413 requests. 

Although the bureau did not disclose which companies were denied their extension, they did say that the denials had either failed to qualify for an extension, or had withdrawn their application.  In order to qualify for an extension, the companies needed to provide proof that they did no produce any oil or natural gas on their lease as of May 15th, and that the lease occurred in waters at depths exceeding 500-feet.  The other contingency was that their lease was set to expire before the culmination of 2015.

In May, President Obama announced that the administration would grant 1-year extensions to companies operating in the Gulf in an effort to provide additional time to drill on their leases following the no drill moratorium that was in effect from May-October in 2010.  Obama said that the lease extensions are part of a number of initiatives aimed at boosting oil production in the United States.