U.S. Issues More Drilling Permits

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Michael Bromwich, the top U.S. offshore-drilling regulator, said Tuesday that the speed with which some oil and gas companies are shrugging off last year's deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster as an aberration is disturbing.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bromwich, who heads the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, said more permits to drill for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico's deep water would be issued "within the next week."

In recent weeks, the agency has issued four deep-water drilling permits, including one Tuesday that allows Exxon Mobil Corp. to drill a new well in 6,941 feet of water. Those permits are the first to be issued since such operations were shut down for deep-water drilling in response to the Deepwater Horizon's explosion and subsequent oil spill. On Monday the agency also awarded Royal Dutch Shell PLC the first deep-water exploration plan since the disaster.

Some oil and gas companies have "clearly recognized that Deepwater Horizon was the symptom of a broader failure in both industry and government" to match safety with the increasing risk of deep-water operations, Mr. Bromwich said in a speech during the agency's annual meeting.

"But there are other operators who, with surprising and disturbing speed, have seemed all-too-ready to shrug off Deepwater Horizon as a complete aberration, a perfect storm, one in a million," Mr. Bromwich said. ...

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