American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2017 - 16

IndustryDigest
The Gulf of Mexico Marine
Assessment Program for Protected
Species is the name of BOEM's
partnership with the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration
Fisheries, U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service's Southeast Region, and the
U.S. Geological Survey's Wetlands and
Aquatic Research Center.
The initiative will use aerial and
ship-based surveys, and satellite tagging
to collect the best information possible
on the abundance and distribution of
marine mammals, seabirds and sea
turtles in the Gulf. BOEM says the data
will help inform federally mandated
environmental assessments related to
offshore energy and marine minerals
development.
The partnership will use spatial and
temporal information from near-shore
to the outer extent of the U.S. Exclusive
Economic Zone to gather data, BOEM
says.
According to the agency, its
environmental studies program funds
"use-inspired" research to inform its
decision-making process. To this end,
BOEM reports the program's funding of
this new partnership will help enhance
information that will help in mitigating
and monitoring impact-producing
factors such as underwater noise, vessel
traffic, entanglement, trash and
discharges/produced water. r

BSEE Expands Window
For OCS Lease Holders

WASHINGTON-A final Bureau of
Safety and Environmental Enforcement
regulation doubles the amount of time
offshore oil and natural gas operators
have to coordinate development
operations and retain their leases in
federal waters of the U.S. Outer
Continental Shelf, the agency says. The
final regulation became effective after it
was published June 9 in the Federal
Register.
As part of the Consolidated
Appropriations Act of 2017, signed by
President Trump on May 5, the
secretary of interior was directed to
revise 30 CFR 250.180, regulations
governing BSEE operations.
According to the National Ocean
Industries Association, the revision
provides operators more time and
flexibility to evaluate information-such
16 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

as reviewing well data, planning an
additional well, or obtaining
authorization for expenditure approval-
to determine if they will perform
another lease-holding operation.
"This rule making extends the time
from 180 days to one year between
production, drilling or well-working
operations on a lease," says BSEE
Director Scott Angelle. "These
additional months mean companies
doing business on the OCS will have
more planning flexibility, which will
help them be more cost efficient, create
more jobs, and maximize the economic
benefit for the entire nation."
BSEE points out the term "year"
refers to the 365-day (or 366-day in a
leap year) period after the end of the
last lease-holding operation, not the end
of a specific calendar year.
Before the regulation was revised,
the agency says, a lease expired if the
lessee or operator stopped conducting
operations during the last 180 days of a
lease term, unless the operator resumed
operations or received a suspension of
operations or suspension of production
order from the BSEE.
The extension also affects related
BSRR guidance documents, such as
NTL No. 2008-No9, and unitization
agreements that follow a BSEEapproved model, the agency points out.
BSEE adds it plans to revise the
relevant notices to reflect the extension
of the 180-day requirement, and
encourages parties with unit agreements
to consider revising those agreements to
reflect the change. r

BOEM Accepts All But 10
High Bids From Sale 247

WASHINGTON-The U.S. Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management says it
has accepted 153 of 163 high bids
submitted in Central Gulf of Mexico Oil
and Gas Lease Sale 247.
BOEM notes that the March 22 sale
generated 189 bids from 28 companies
on 163 tracts covering 913,542 acres.
Of the tracts receiving bids, BOEM says
22 were in water depths less than 200
meters and 141 were in water depths
greater than 200 meters. More than 75
percent of the blocks receiving bids
were in deep and ultradeep waters
greater than 800 meters (AOGR, April
2017, pg. 94).

Of the $274.8 million in high bids it
received, NOIA says it rejected 10
totaling $10.8 million and covering
56,366 acres as insufficient to provide
the public with fair market value. The
agency says those tracts will be
reoffered in Lease Sale 249 in August.
BOEM mentions that the highest bid
accepted was $24.1 million from Shell
Offshore Inc. for Atwater Valley 64.
The tract receiving the greatest number
of bids was Garden Banks 1006, for
which Total E&P USA bid $12.6
million, topping offers from Statoil Gulf
of Mexico, Cobalt International Energy,
Shell and Chevron. r

Industry Groups Urge
Delay In Rules Setting
Rail Oil Vapor Pressure

WASHINGTON-New vapor
pressure requirements for crude oil
transported by rail proposed by the
Department of Transportation's Pipeline
and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration are premature, say two
industry groups.
The Independent Petroleum
Association of America and American
Exploration & Production Council
submitted the comments in response to
an advance notice of proposed rule
making, "Hazardous Materials:
Volatility of Unrefined Petroleum
Products and Class 3 Materials,"
Docket No. PHMSA-2016-0077.
"PHMSA implemented its sampling
and testing program in a joint rule
making with the Federal Railroad
Administration, with the notice directed
exclusively at crude transported by rail.
As such, the program did not clearly
solicit input from affected producers.
PHMSA's efforts to enforce the
program have resulted in an ad hoc
compliance program, with producers
being forced to comply with extremely
tight time constraints," IPAA and
AXPC write.
PHMSA received a petition in 2015
from New York seeking an additional
paragraph in oil transportation rules to
require all crude moving by rail to have
a Reid vapor pressure of less than 9.0
pounds per square inch. State officials
said they sought to decrease the risks of
death or damage from fire or explosion
in case of a train accident (AOGR, May
2017, pg. 22).
American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2017

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