New Rule for Decommissioning Cost Reporting

The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has released its final pipeline decommissioning costs regulations to reduce risks offshore. 

The final Oil and Gas and Sulphur Operations on the Outer Continental Shelf - Decommissioning Costs for Pipelines rule will amend existing BSEE regulations to require lessees, owners of operating rights and right-of-way holders to submit summaries of actual expenditures incurred for pipeline decommissioning activities. 

This rule enlarges the scope of the December 2015 Decommissioning Costs reporting rule to include pipelines. Pipeline decommissioning cost summaries and supporting information, if requested, will be used by BSEE to estimate future decommissioning costs. 

BSEE did not include reporting of expenditures for pipeline decommissioning in the December 2015 final rule, but has subsequently determined that it is needed to better estimate future decommissioning costs for those activities.

The final rule will take effect 30 days after publication.

The report is available here.