Exxon says ‘$25 bn rule’ will sink Deepwater oil drilling

Bloomberg

The world’s biggest oil explorers are fighting a U.S. plan to toughen offshore drilling rules that Exxon Mobil Corp. said will cost $25 billion over 10 years and render many offshore discoveries worthless.
The Obama administration will issue the sweeping new regulations as part of an effort to reduce the number of well blowouts after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010. The government has pegged the rules’ costs at less than $1 billion.
The changes would arrive amid the worst oil slump in a generation. ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. have already abandoned some Gulf prospects because they wouldn’t be profitable at current prices. If the proposals are enacted, exploration outlays in the Gulf will tumble by 70 percent over the next two decades, wiping out as many as 190,000 jobs, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
“The Gulf of Mexico is already in a deep downturn as a result of lower oil prices,” said Robin Shoemaker, an industry analyst at Keybanc Capital Markets Inc. “Oil companies and the service providers are trying to come up with ways to reduce costs so the idea that they can absorb any additional expenses — they’re not in that ballpark at all.”
The regulations, first proposed last year, have been in the final stage of review by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The proposal restricts the fluids pumped into wells, requires redundant safety devices and stipulates continuous monitoring from shore. The changes are needed because well blowouts have continued at about the same rate as before the explosion at BP Plc’s Macondo well in 2010 that killed 11 and spewed millions of gallons of crude, the government says.
Environmental groups say the new rules don’t go far enough to safeguard marine life and the people who depend on it for their livelihoods. Friends of the Earth has called on the government to halt all auctions of offshore drilling leases.
“There’s no such thing as safe offshore drilling,” said Marissa Knodel, a climate campaigner for the Washington-based group. “Tougher rules aren’t going to mitigate the human and environmental costs of allowing more drilling to occur.”

Government Shortcomings
In a closed-door meeting last month, Exxon, the largest driller in the U.S., said the government underestimated the time and complexity needed to implement the rules, ignored the reduced production and stranded reserves that would result, and added unneeded operations that could boost risks rather than decrease them. The comments came in slides Exxon presented at the meeting and were posted on a government website.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster looms large over federal attempts to tighten requirements. The blowout at the $153 million well sank a $365 million drillship, paralyzed the Gulf region for months and cost BP more than $40 billion in penalties, compensation and restoration costs.
Exxon, in the meeting with White House and Interior Department officials on March 7, outlined its assertion that the rules will cost $25 billion and argued they would increase the danger of a blowout by wresting decision-making from on-site engineers with decades of experience.