KENNER (AP) — The Obama administration moved to head off another catastrophic leak like the BP disaster Wednesday, ordering oil and gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico to plug or dismantle thousands of wells and platforms no longer in use.
The move came as the government’s point man for the oil spill said BP’s blown-out well should be pronounced dead by Sunday.
In Washington, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued an order requiring oil and gas companies to plug nearly 3,500 nonproducing wells and dismantle about 650 production platforms that are longer being used.
The threat posed by the wells was detailed earlier this summer in an Associated Press investigation. The Gulf has more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells and more than 1,200 idle rigs and platforms, and AP found that many of the wells have been ignored for decades, with no one checking for leaks.
Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, said the Obama administration crackdown was under consideration long before the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
“As infrastructure continues to age, the risk of damage increases. That risk increases substantially during storm season,” he said.
Under the order, operators must plug wells that been inactive for the past five years. Platforms and pipelines that are not being used for production or exploration must be decommissioned, even if the leases are still active.
Current federal regulations require idle structures to be decommissioned — a process that involves plugging wells and dismantling and removing equipment — within one year of the lease’s expiration date.
Oil and gas producers have long argued that certain idle platforms, wells and pipelines are still valuable, because they might one day be used to support other wells nearby. Oil companies have been reluctant to plug the wells and remove the infrastructure until the lease expires.
Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, an offshore drilling group, welcomed the new order, which he said had been in the works for at least two years.
“Now, as then, the offshore industry is committed to safe operations, both during and after exploration and production, and this includes responsible removal of structures and plugging of wells,” said Luthi, a former head of the Minerals Management Service, the agency that oversaw offshore drilling before it was overhauled and renamed as a result of the BP disaster.
But he said the Obama administration “must also assist in clearing the path so such operations can be done quickly, smoothly and in an environmentally responsible manner.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who had urged Salazar to do something about idle rigs, called the announcement excellent news for both the economy and the environment.
“These structures are not producing resources or creating jobs by just sitting there, and the risk of leaking abandoned rigs is something we’ve overlooked long enough,” said Grijalva, chairman of a House subcommittee on national parks and public lands. “This announcement should put thousands of Gulf laborers back to work in short order cleaning up the Gulf and opening up new opportunities.”
Meanwhile, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government official overseeing the crisis in the Gulf, said the relief well BP has been drilling all summer long should intersect the ruptured well within 24 hours. He said mud and cement will then be pumped in, sealing the hole once and for all by Sunday.
“We are within a 96-hour window of killing the well,” Allen said nearly five months after the disaster unfolded with an explosion aboard an offshore drilling rig April 20 that killed 11 workers.
 
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