Oil and Gas and Sulfur Operations in the Outer Continental Shelf-High Pressure High Temperature Updates

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 250</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID: BSEE-2021-0003; EEEE500000 245E1700D2 ET1SF0000.EAQ000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1014-AA49</RIN> <SUBJECT>Oil and Gas and Sulfur Operations in the Outer Continental Shelf—High Pressure High Temperature Updates</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of the Interior (DOI or Department), through the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), is adding requirements for new or unusual technology, including equipment used in high pressure high temperature (HPHT) environments; revising and reorganizing the information submission requirements for a project's Conceptual Plans and Deepwater Operations Plan (DWOP); and requiring independent third parties to review certain information prior to submission to BSEE. This final rule will improve operational and environmental safety and human health, while providing consistency and clarity to industry regarding the equipment and operational requirements as well as the submissions that are necessary so that BSEE can review and consider for approval proposed projects that would use new or unusual technology. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on October 29, 2024. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of October 29, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For questions, contact Kirk Malstrom, Regulations and Standards Branch, (202) 258-1518, or by email: <E T="03">regs@bsee.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Summary</HD> This final rule will improve operational safety and human health and environmental protections, while providing industry with clarity and consistency regarding the equipment, operational requirements, and submissions that are necessary for BSEE to review and approve operations using new or unusual technology. BSEE considers new or unusual technology to include equipment or procedures that the offshore oil and gas industry has not used previously or extensively under the anticipated operating conditions or has not used previously in a particular BSEE Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Region, or that have operating characteristics outside the performance parameters established in 30 CFR part 250. Currently, operations and equipment used in HPHT environments are relatively new on the United States OCS. In general, an HPHT environment is present when well conditions have pressures greater than 15,000 pounds per square inch absolute (psia) or have a temperature greater than 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Historically, most oilfield equipment has not been designed to withstand such high pressures and temperatures. Working in an HPHT environment therefore increases operational complexity because HPHT-associated operations require the use of equipment that exists at the limits of current technology and lacks a long operational history. Due to limited industry experience in HPHT environments, few industry standards directly address HPHT equipment and operations. Currently, BSEE carefully reviews HPHT projects on a case-by-case basis. To date, BSEE has received several applications for projects in HPHT environments and anticipates HPHT project interest to increase due to equipment technological advancements and industry capabilities to develop resources in these environments. For new or unusual technology projects, including HPHT projects, BSEE regulations currently: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">—Require submission of information in a sequence that is not conducive to BSEE's review and consideration for approval of new or unusual technology projects because these projects typically require a more immediate BSEE review and approval than the regulations currently allow; and</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">—Lack specific equipment requirements because the technology is new and there are few applicable industry standards.</FP> To address these issues, this final rulemaking: <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> —Requires the submission of information in a sequence that provides both operators  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and BSEE the ability to evaluate whether a new or unusual technology project is economically and operationally feasible; </FP> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  BSEE administers the Departmental regulations at 30 CFR part 250, which generally apply to “a lessee, the owner or holder of operating rights, a designated operator or agent of the lessee(s). . . .” 30 CFR 250.105 (definition of “you”). For convenience, this preamble will refer to these regulated entities as “operators” unless otherwise indicated. </FTNT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">—Clarifies that equipment or procedures used for operations in an HPHT environment are considered new or unusual technology.</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">—Adds specific equipment requirements, particularly for barriers, through new regulations and the incorporation of applicable industry standards; and</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">—Requires Independent Third Party (I3P) review of operator submissions, in certain cases, or provides BSEE with the ability to require I3P review, to ensure project viability and safety.</FP> Currently, the DWOP process requires information to be submitted in two distinct phases: the Conceptual Plan phase and the DWOP phase. This final rule maintains the two phase DWOP process and adds additional requirements to each phase that will enable BSEE to thoroughly review proposed new or unusual technology projects. The final rule defines three types of Conceptual Plans: a Project Conceptual Plan, a New or Unusual Technology Conceptual Plan, and a New or Unusual Technology Barrier Equipment Conceptual Plan. A Project Conceptual Plan will be required for any project planned in water depths greater than 1000 feet or that will include the use of subsea tieback development technology, regardless of water depth. A New or Unusual Technology Conceptual Plan will be required for any project or system involving New or Unusual Technology equipment or procedures. A New or Unusual Technology Barrier Equipment Conceptual Plan will be required for any project or system involving new or unusual technology identified as a primary or secondary barrier to isolate a hydrocarbon pressure source from people and the environment. An operator must submit the applicable Conceptual Plan(s) based on the specifics of the proposed project. The information specific to HPHT projects submitted in the applicable Conceptual Plan(s) will be evaluated for adequacy prior to approval. The final rule's establishment of three new types of Conceptual Plans and the associated new timing requirements established in § 250.226 ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> BSEE must approve your Conceptual Plan(s) before the Bureau will approve any associated permit) will provide both operators and BSEE with the ability to evaluate early in the project planning process, before permit approval, whether a new or unusual technology project is economically and operationally feasible. In the final rule, the DWOP phase, during which the DWOP is reviewed, will take place after the Conceptual Plan(s) have been approved and the system design has been substantially completed. In addition, this final rule revises 30 CFR part 250, subpart B (“Plans and Information”) and the DWOP process to incorporate BSEE's Barrier Concept into the requirements, including for new or unusual technology projects. The Barrier Concept is a holistic approach to the barrier system based on BSEE's determination that abnormal conditions and/or failures are potential risks in a well or pipeline system. When an abnormal condition or failure occurs, it must be detectable, and upon detection, its source must be isolated behind redundant barriers. BSEE considers a barrier or barrier system to be any engineered equipment, materials, component, or assembly that is intended to contain a hydrocarbon pressure source(s) to prevent harm to people or the environment. This final rule defines the types of equipment that BSEE considers to be sufficient barriers and how barriers must be used. The final rule also includes portions of the Barrier Concept in the DWOP process under the New or Unusual Technology Barrier Equipment Conceptual Plan as a means of ensuring that new or unusual technology projects include sufficient barriers, which will enhance protections for people and the environment. This rule incorporates into the regulations the existing BSEE policy on the Barrier Concept discussed in Notice to Lessees (NTLs) 2009-G36, <E T="03">Using Alternate Compliance in Safety Systems for Subsea Production Operations;</E> 2019-G02, <E T="03">Guidance for Information Submissions Regarding Proposed High Pressure and/or High Temperature (HPHT) Well Design, Completion, and Intervention Operations</E> ; and 2019-G03, <E T="03">Guidance for Information Submissions Regarding Site Specific and Non-Site Specific HPHT Equipment Design Verification Analysis and Design Validation Testing</E> . Furthermore, this final rule revises the DWOP process to require I3P review of equipment or procedures identified in a New or Unusual Technology Barrier Equipment Conceptual Plan. This final rule also allows BSEE to require an operator to use an I3P to review certain equipment or procedures identified in a New or Unusual Technology Conceptual Plan. Independent third parties have been used as a longstanding industry practice to support verifications that ensure project viability and safety. I3P review provides an additional review in circumstances where proposed equipment or processes may be technically ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 327k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━