By Tom Fowler
HOUSTON--Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said she asked
energy industry executives to accept the role they play in how
slowly new regulations move forward, warning them against "throwing
regulators under the bus" during a meeting Wednesday at a major
offshore energy technology trade show.
Ms. Jewell, on the job for just over a month, said she met
privately with executives from BP PLC (BP), Halliburton Co. (HAL),
Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB), Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO) and other
companies and industry groups at the Offshore Technology
Conference, an annual industry showcase.
"I did poke them about not throwing regulators under the bus or
blaming us when there is actually shared responsibility when
something doesn't move forward," the former chief executive of
outdoor apparel company REI said to reporters.
Ms. Jewell said it was a "delightful surprise" to find the CEOs
were very supportive of the work done by the Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement and the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, both of which are under the Interior Department, to
develop better regulations for the offshore industry.
"I didn't sense any reluctance to embrace regulations," Ms.
Jewell said, adding that the Department of Interior's goal is to
provide the industry with consistency, predictability and certainty
of regulations.
BSEE Director James Watson, who accompanied Ms. Jewell on
Wednesday, said his agency was developing new rules for drilling in
the waters of the U.S. Arctic Ocean which would draw upon lessons
learned from Royal Dutch Shell PLC's (RDSA) frustrated efforts to
drill there. The company had to cut back on its drilling plans due
to equipment damage and delays. After the drilling season ended, it
suffered a setback when one of its rigs ran aground. Both Shell and
rival ConocoPhillips (COP) said they would delay drilling plans in
the U.S. Arctic Ocean at least until next year.
Mr. Watson said the new rules wouldn't be issued using emergency
powers -- as had been done with some new rules immediately after
the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident--but would still need to be
completed quickly in order for companies to be ready to comply with
them by 2014.
The visit to Houston was part of Ms. Jewell's travels to meet
officials from the industries her agency oversees. Last week, she
visited a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico operated by LLOG
Exploration and a deep-water production platform owned by Chevron
Corp. (CVX).
During a tour of the exhibits at the conference, Ms. Jewell
heard presentations on 3-D seismic technology, oil field
development, and operated an offshore drilling simulator. A
petroleum engineer who worked for one of the predecessors of Exxon
Mobil Corp. (XOM) in the 1980s before going into the banking
business, Ms. Jewell said much of the equipment she saw on the
floor of the show was familiar, just bigger and more
technologically sophisticated.
Write to Tom Fowler at tom.fowler@wsj.com
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