Terms appear to be the same as for the American Samoa Sale to be held on 11/19/2026.
Posts Tagged ‘BOEM’
Proposed Leasing Notice – Northern Mariana Islands OCS Minerals – 12/16/2026 Sale
Posted in deep sea mining, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, tagged American Samoa, BOEM, Marine Minerals Administration, Northern Mariana Islands, OCS Minerals Lease Sale on August 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Proposed revisions to Artic drilling regulations are a positive step
Posted in Alaska, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, well control incidents, tagged Arctic drilling, BOEM, BOP, BSEE, MMA, regulations, same season relief well, subsea isolation device, well control on August 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The proposed revisions to the Arctic drilling regulations are a positive initiative that will improve the prospects for renewal of Beaufort and Chukchi Sea exploration.
In particular, removing the same-season-relief-well (SSRW) requirements in the current regulations is an essential regulatory action. The SSRW provision has the effect of precluding exploratory drilling while providing no added environmental protection and increasing operational risks. Given that there is at least a 50% chance that rig mobilization, relief well planning, drilling, repeated surveying, and plugging the flowing well would take more than the specified 45 days, a SSRW is not a legitimate well control option.
The preamble includes important questions for respondents. These questions are compiled beginning on p. 108 of the attachment. In particular, the comments on Subsea Isolation Devices (SSIDs) should be interesting. Given the required blowout preventer stack redundancy, it’s not clear to me that SSIDs would reduce blowout risk. They would however increase operational complexity.
For floating drilling operations in the Arctic and elsewhere, the focus needs to be on well design, integrity, and control. Fortunately, by carefully verifying casing and cement integrity, ensuring complete barrier redundancy, and having standby capping and containment capability, the probability of a sustained oil blowout can be reduced to 10–6 or lower.
Lastly for now, these regulations further demonstrate the importance of consolidating BOEM and BSEE in a single bureau.
Proposed revisions to Arctic Drilling regulations
Posted in Alaska, drilling, energy policy, Regulation, tagged Arctic drilling, BOEM, BSEE, Marine Minerals Administration, proposed regulations, SSRW on August 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The proposed revisions to the Arctic drilling regulations have just been posted and are attached for your convenience.
From a risk management standpoint, the current Arctic drilling rule, particularly the same season relief well (SSRW) provisions, is arguably the worst in the history of the OCS program. Regardless of the prospects for Arctic exploration, offshore drilling is not feasible under the current regulations. Hopefully, this proposal represents a significant improvement. More to follow after the text has been reviewed.
Offshore and space synergy!
Posted in energy policy, Florida, Uncategorized, tagged BOEM, Gateway-S, MMA, Oceaneering, offshore and space synergy, Rigs-to-Rockets, Seagate Space, Space Florida on July 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »
MMA’s public notice about support for space launch activities (Rigs-to-Rockets) recognizes the importance of collaboration between the highly innovative offshore and space industries.
In that regard, Seagate Space, a Florida company, is moving forward with plans for offshore launches. Seagate is “developing cutting-edge maritime infrastructure to avoid land site limitations and scale orbital launch cadence for commercial, government, and defense missions.”
Seagate’s Space Gateway-S platform has adopted features that have been widely applied by the offshore industry:
- Autonomous dynamic positioning – developed and advanced by the drilling industry
- Modular architecture – common in offshore facility design
- Pontoon design – ala semi-submersible drilling units
- Mobility – like mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) – jackups, drillships, semi-submersibles
Space Florida, a public corporation and innovation connector, recently announced a partnership with Seagate Space:
EXPLORATION PARK, Fla.—June 2, 2026— Today, Space Florida announced Project Manta, a strategic investment in Seagate Space to expand Florida’s launch capacity through specialized maritime solutions. Space Florida’s Board of Directors approved an investment to prototype and demonstrate key elements of Seagate Space’s novel offshore launch infrastructure system, setting the stage for future development and manufacturing within the state of Florida.
Seagate has also signed an MOU with Oceaneering, a leading offshore company.
Jacksonville news clip about offshore launches:
Secretarial Order establishing the Marine Minerals Administration
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged BOEM, BSEE, Marine Minerals Administration, Matt Giacona, MMS, ONRR, SECRETARIAL Order 3451 on July 20, 2026| 1 Comment »
See attached. This is a well written directive. Kudos to the authors.
Retaining the revenue management functions in ONRR is prudent.
There has been no specific announcement regarding the MMA Director, but a quote in the American Samoa lease sale announcement cites Matt Giacona, Acting MMA Director. Congrats to him.
Letter to GAO challenges reorganization of the OCS program by repeating false claims about MMS
Posted in accidents, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged Bob Kaluza, BOEM, BSEE, Chief Counsel, Deepwater Horizon, GAO, macondo, MMS, offshore safety, Regulation, regulatory fragmentation on July 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The attached letter to the General Accountability Office (GAO) asserts that there were “deeply entrenched ethical issues and conflicts of interest within the former Minerals Management Service (MMS),” and implies that these issues were among the factors contributing to the tragic Macondo well blowout.
I retired from MMS shortly before the Macondo well blew out on April 20, 2020, and testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 11, 2010. My comments on MMS employee ethics still stand and are reiterated below:
I also want to express my disappointment in certain media comments directed at my former MMS colleagues. These comments have not only been ill-informed and unsubstantiated, but malicious. Without hesitation, I can tell you that MMS regulatory personnel–inspectors, engineers, scientists, and others–are 100% committed to their safety and pollution prevention mission. MMS inspectors are themselves exposed to risks every day when they fly offshore and inspect facilities. MMS personnel have repeatedly made personal sacrifices to support the regulatory mission. After Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike, MMS employees worked to restore oil and gas production essential to our economy, even when their personal lives had been disrupted by the onshore impacts of these hurricanes. These personnel work under strict ethics standards, and despite a few isolated and highly publicized incidents that occurred more than four years ago, conduct themselves with the highest degree of professionalism. While a critical review of the entire offshore regulatory regime is necessary and appropriate, unsubstantiated accusations and personal attacks are not.
The comprehensive Chief Counsel’s Report, National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, was the only inquiry to consider whether ethical lapses were a contributing factor to the blowout. In the “Regulatory Observations” chapter, the Chief Counsel addressed ethics concerns directly (p. 261):
“In recent years various bodies have concluded that certain MMS offices and programs have violated ethical rules or guidelines. In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, some questioned whether ethical lapses played any role in causing the blowout. The Chief Counsel‘s team found no evidence of any such lapses.“
This blog closely followed the Macondo blowout. I have read all of the investigation reports and many of the court documents. I also served on the defense team for Bob Kaluza, the BP Well Site Leader who was fully acquitted after being shamefully prosecuted in the wake of the blowout. My thoughts on the Macondo tragedy are summarized in a six part series.
Because of the false ethics narrative and scapegoating of MMS, experts who should have been directing the well control efforts, were pushed to the back of the bus shortly after the blowout began. Had that not been the case, I believe the top kill operation would not have been aborted in late May and the well would have been killed 48 days sooner, reducing the oil spill volume by at least 2.4 million bbls. (See the analysis by Dr. Mayank Tyagi and his colleagues at LSU.) Also, keep in mind that the USCG Incident Commander almost required BP to resume flow from the well after the capping stack successfully shut-in the well on 7/15/2010, and would have likely done so were it not for forceful input from an engineer from the former MMS.
The consolidation of BOEM and BSEE into a single bureau makes sense. As I previously commented:
This is an excellent step that many OCS program veterans have been advocating. In addition to the inefficiencies associated with overlapping and intertwined BOEM and BSEE responsibilities, the associated regulatory fragmentation is a significant safety risk factor.
The primary OCS functions including leasing, resource evaluation, economic analysis, permitting, inspection and enforcement, investigations, environmental assessment, spill response preparedness, promulgation of regulations, technology assessment, research,and decommissioning, are inextricably linked, cannot be effectively segmented, and should not be stovepiped.
Finally, with regard to the reorganization planning questions posed at the end of the attached letter, perhaps GAO should first consider the abrupt, unplanned termination of MMS. At a 2011 Ministerial Forum in Washington, an international offshore safety expert criticized that rash decision noting – “It took 87 days to stop the blowout, but only 30 days to get rid of the regulator.”
As Lease Sale BBG3 approaches (Aug. 12, 2026), Gulf production is high, drilling is low
Posted in drilling, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged BBG3, BOEM, Buckskin field, downhole commingling, Gulf of America, lease sale, LLOG, record production, rig count, well starts on July 9, 2026| 2 Comments »
Lease sale Big Beautiful Gulf 3 (BBG3) will be held on 8/12/2026. The Final Notice of Sale is attached.
Given the rather tepid BBG1 and BBG2 results and the high sale frequency, robust bidding is not expected. Nonetheless, the BBG bidding patterns and tract evaluations have been interesting, most notably BOEM’s rejection of LLOG’s bid for Keathley Canyon 828, an expired lease block in the their Buckskin field.
Keathley Canyon 828 is not among the blocks listed for sale at BBG3. Per the Notice of Sale (p. 4), “any lease blocks whose high bids were rejected and not appealed in the immediately preceding Big Beautiful Gulf lease sale, are expected to be included as eligible for lease.” Can we therefore assume that either the KC 828 bid rejection or the prior lease expiration is being appealed?
The legislatively mandated BBG lease terms are attractive – 10 years and 12.5% royalty for deepwater blocks. A more recent legislative directive requires (wrongly in my opinion) the approval of downhole commingling requests. This accelerates the return on investments in deepwater, high pressure reservoirs. Such commingling has presumably contributed to record Gulf oil production in 2025. The longer term concern is the impact on ultimate oil and gas recovery.
Meanwhile, the Gulf rig count and well start numbers continue to disappoint. Baker Hughes (7/2/2026) lists only 4 active rigs in the deepwater Gulf – one each in the Alaminos and Mississippi Canyon areas and two in the Green Canyon Area. BSEE’s borehole file lists only 15 new deepwater exploratory well starts YTD.
Rigs-to-Rockets baby! Let’s go!
Posted in offshore, Uncategorized, tagged alternative uses, BOEM, OCS facilities, offshore launches, Rigs-to-Rockets, space launches on July 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today announced the publication of a Request for Information to explore the potential use of the Outer Continental Shelf for offshore space launch and re-entry activities.
“The Outer Continental Shelf presents a significant opportunity to support the future of America’s space economy. Offshore launch, re-entry, and recovery infrastructure could expand operational flexibility, increase capacity, reduce constraints on growing launch demand, and strengthen the nation’s commercial and national security space capabilities. With approximately 3.2 billion acres under federal jurisdiction, BOEM is uniquely positioned to help evaluate this emerging opportunity,” said Acting BOEM Director Matt Giacona. “This Request for Information is an important first step in assessing how offshore development could support the next era of U.S. space leadership.”
Rigs-to-Rockets is one of the alternative OCS uses promoted on this blog. Sea Launch was the first company to launch rockets from a converted semi-submersible drilling rig (photo above).
Kudos to BOEM for this initiative. Their Federal Register Notice is attached.
Lease Sale BBG2 decision matrix; BOEM’s KC Block 828 bid rejection is interesting
Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Atwater Valley, bid rejections, BOEM, Buckskin field, Keathley Canyon, LBCI, Lease Sale BBG2, LLOG, MROV on June 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »
BOEM’s Decision Information Matrix for Sale BBG2 is attached. As previously noted, 2 of the 25 high bids were rejected: Keathley Canyon Block 828 ($1,101,202) and Atwater Valley Block 63 ($650,018).
The rejected bids were significantly below both BOEM’s Mean of the Range-of-Value and Lower Bound Confidence Interval for these single bid tracts (table below).
| Block No. | Company | no. of bids | bid | MROV | LBCI |
| AT 63 | LLOG | 1 | $650,018 | $2,400,000 | $1,800,000 |
| KC 828 | LLOG | 1 | $1,101,202 | $24,000,000 | $23,000,000 |
In the case of Keathley Canyon 828, BOEM’s valuation is more than 20 times the high bid. BOEM valued this block far higher than any other block in the sale.
KC 828 had been previously leased and that lease expired on 9/3/2025. The lease block was part of LLOG’s Buckskin field. Apparently, the lease expired due to inactivity given that the last well reached total depth more than a year prior to the expiration date. LLOG wanted the lease back. BOEM’s rejection sends a message that the price went up (by a lot 😉).
Finally, why didn’t any other company bid on KC 828, a block that has been publicly reported as being part of the Buckskin field?
The fraud allegations against GE Vernova are serious, but Vineyard Wind bears ultimate responsibility for the project
Posted in accidents, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged BOEM, BSEE, CVA, DNV, fraud charges, GE Vernova, investigation report, lessee, litigation, responsible party, Vineyard Wind, waiver on June 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Pointing to the potential financial implications for GE Vernova, Recharge News cites this serious fraud accusation by Vineyard Wind (VW):
“This exceptional misconduct includes [GE Vernova’s] intentional scheme to falsify critical quality assurance data… and to intentionally misrepresent the quality of those blades to [Vineyard Wind] in a brazen fraudulent, and willful breach of the TSA, ultimately resulting in the catastrophic blade failure…”
Recharge also discusses the findings of the Project Engineer appointed by VW to resolve claims between parties. Under the terms of the contract, the engineer’s determinations are binding unless overturned in arbitration.
- The engineer determined that GE Vernova was liable for project delays, blade defects, vessel costs, and a $185m rescission of previously certified payments.
- The damage claims issued by the project engineer total $853m.
- On the basis of those determinations, VW withheld 100% of the outstanding invoices issued by GE Vernova. Even netted against sums allegedly owed to GE Vernova, VW says the turbine maker owes around $545m.
- Per the contract, there are no limitations on liability in cases of “fraud, gross negligence, deliberate default or willful misconduct.”
My take: VW’s charges against GE Vernova will be resolved in the courts. However, VW is the lessee and operator, and is thus the party responsible to the Federal govt for project safety and environmental protection.
- Operator responsibility is a fundamental tenet of the OCS regulatory program. As lessee/operator, VW bears ultimate responsibility for project safety and environmental protection.
- VW is responsible for contractor selection, management, and oversight.
- If a contractor violates a regulation, the violation notice is given to the operator. If a contractor causes pollution, the operator is responsible for the cleanup.
- DNV, the Certified Verification Agent (CVA) hired by VW, was required to verify the design, fabrication, and installation procedures. Did they raise any issues to VW and the regulators?
- At VW’s request, BOEM waived a Fabrication and Installation Report (FIR) requirement so the project could stay on schedule. The FIR addresses quality assurance measures, so the waiver is highly relevant and concerning.
- Did the division of responsibilities between BOEM and BSEE weaken regulatory oversight? BOEM, ostensibly just the leasing bureau, should not have been authorized to grant departures that could affect structural integrity and operational safety.
- It’s surprising that VW has not been cited for civil penalties resulting from the blade failure and the resulting environmental damage.
- How can a judge prevent a contractor from stopping work for an operator that has filed serious fraud allegations against the contractor, has stopped making payments, and has, along with the Governor, declared the project to be complete?
Lastly, nearly two years after the blade failure, we are still awaiting BSEE’s investigation report.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 