Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)

“BSEE will continue to evaluate the process for issuing decommissioning orders and will continue to issue decommissioning orders to jointly and severally liable parties on a case-by-case basis.“

Final decommissioning rule (preamble). 4/18/2023

Although the news release for BSEE’s final decommissioning rule asserts that the regulations “provide the certainty requested by industry,” that does not seem to be the case. The main change in the final rule was to delete the reverse chronological order (RCO) provision which called for issuing decommissioning orders to the most recent predecessor first. Instead, BSEE may continue to issue decommissioning orders arbitrarily.

While deleting the RCO provision may be advantageous for the regulator, and in some cases for the public, claiming that the decision provides certainty for industry is quite a stretch. BSEE may continue to issue a decommissioning order to anyone in the ownership chain, whether the company was a recent lessee or one that had owned the lease decades ago. Original or early lessees may be held liable for decommissioning old facilities regardless of subsequent damage, modifications, or neglected maintenance.

The absence of a defined procedure for issuing decommissioning orders may also expose BSEE to new legal challenges, particularly in cases where a company has not held the lease for decades. A 1988 letter from the Director of the Minerals Management Service to Amoco (attached below) explicitly relieves the assignor (predecessor) of decommissioning liability after the lease has been assigned. A revised bonding rule published on May 22, 1997 reversed that policy, but decommissioning liability for leases assigned prior to the 1997 rule may still be very much in question.

Another concern is the split jurisdiction for decommissioning between BSEE and BOEM. The financial, land management, operational, and environmental aspects of decommissioning are inextricably intertwined and attempts to divide these responsibilities between two bureaus with separate regulations is a prescription for gaps, overlap, inconsistency, inefficiency, disputes, and confusion. Decommissioning should be regulated holistically, not with separate “BOEM-only” and “BSEE-only” regulations.

Finally, wind facility decommissioning may prove to be even more challenging given the higher facility density and economic uncertainties. The regulatory regime needs to be clearly established early in the development phase.

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• The troubling case of Platforms Hogan and Houchin
• Taxpayer funded decommissioning – troubling precedent for the US offshore program
• California decommissioning – the band plays on
• Programmatic EIS for Pacific OCS platform decommissioning presents 4 alternatives, none of which are workable
• Old disputes prevent common sense solutions
• Decommissioning update 😀