MPs to look at safety of drilling off Shetland
MPs are to enlarge an inquiry into deepwater drilling off the UK coast in the sit up late for festive purposes of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, they announced yesterday.
The manliness and climate change committee will examine whether the government was suitable to rule out a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the waters occidental of Shetland.
The committee will look at the implications for the UK oil labor of the explo
sion on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in April, that killed 11 people, and the subsequent leak.
The inquiry will reflect upon the hazards and risk of drilling in the waters west of Shetland and whether the existing safety regime and environmental rules are fit for purpose.
The MPs elect also look at whether deepwater oil and gas production is essential as the UK attempts to move to a low-carbon system, and to what extent those fossil fuel resources would add to the rural parts 's energy security.
Last month, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said some urgent review sparked by the Gulf of Mexico disaster had plant the measures governing the oil and gas industry in UK waters were "fit for purpose". But he announced an increase in the inspections of North Sea drilling rigs.
Yesterday, the spirit committee chairman Tim Yeo said MPs believed "serious questions" needed to subsist asked about the safety of deepwater drilling off the coast of Scotland in lamp of the oil spill off the US.
"The committee will have ~ing questioning BP and environmental and industry experts to find out whether the regulation has made the right decision in ruling out a moratorium without ceasing new deepwater drilling in the waters west of Shetland," he reported. "We will also want to question the industry about whether they heed the political risk of exploration and investment in the United States needs to be reviewed in the light of the attitude of the Obama conduct."
Meanwhile, BP has announced it could delay work to plug its Gulf of Mexico oil leaking by up to 14 days if a northern Caribbean weather rule strengthens.
"Any operations out there would have to be suspended whether it's containment or the alleviation well," Admiral Thad Allen, the US official in charge of the entire-up, told reporters.