Offshore Downhole Commingling Regulatory Updates

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 250</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID: BSEE-2025-0134; EEEE500000 256E1700D2 ET1SF0000.EAQ000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1014-AA68</RIN> <SUBJECT>Offshore Downhole Commingling Regulatory Updates</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule (DFR); request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of the Interior (DOI or Department), through the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), is revising the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) downhole commingling regulations consistent with the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBB). These administrative revisions update the regulations to ensure consistency with the OBBB when BSEE reviews a request for downhole commingling. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final rule is effective October 14, 2025, unless significant adverse comments are received by September 12, 2025. If significant adverse comments are received, the Department will publish notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> before the effective date either withdrawing the rule or issuing a new final rule that responds to significant adverse comments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on this rulemaking by any of the following methods. Please use the Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) 1014-AA68 as an identifier in your message. • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the entry entitled, Enter Keyword or ID, enter BSEE-2025-0134, then click search. Follow the instructions to submit public comments and view supporting and related materials available for this rulemaking. BSEE may post all comments submitted. • <E T="03">Mail or hand-carry comments to the Department of the Interior; Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement; Attention:</E> Regulations and Standards Branch; 45600 Woodland Road, Sterling, Virginia 20166. Please reference “Offshore Downhole Commingling Administrative Updates, 1014-AA68” in your comments and include your name and return address. • <E T="03">Send comments on the information collection in this rule to:</E> Interior Desk Officer 1014-AA68, Office of Management and Budget; by fax at 202-395-5806; or by email at <E T="03">oira_submission@omb.eop.gov.</E> In addition, please send a copy of your comments to BSEE by one of the methods previously listed. <E T="03">Public Availability of Comments</E> —Before including your address, phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment—including your personal identifying information—may be made publicly available at any time. In order for BSEE to withhold from disclosure your personal identifying information, you must identify any information contained in your comment submittal that, if released, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of your personal privacy. You must also briefly describe any possible harmful consequence(s) of the disclosure of the information, such as embarrassment, injury, or other harm. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. <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> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The Department is issuing this rule as a direct final rule. Although the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551-559, generally requires agencies to engage in notice and comment rulemaking, section 553 of the APA provides an exception when the agency “for good cause finds” that notice and comment are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” <E T="03">Id.</E> 553(b)(B). The Department has determined that notice and comment are unnecessary because this rule is noncontroversial; of a minor, technical nature; and is unlikely to receive any significant adverse comments. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Significant adverse comments are those that oppose the revisions in the rule and raise, alone or in combination, (1) reasons why the rule is inappropriate, or (2) serious unintended consequences of the revisions. A comment recommending an addition to the rule will not be considered significant and adverse unless the comment sufficiently explains how this direct final rule would be ineffective without the addition. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  See, <E T="03">e.g., Nat'l Nutritional Foods Ass'n.</E> v. <E T="03">Kennedy,</E> 572 F.2d 377, 385 (2d Cir. 1978) (“`Unnecessary' means unnecessary so far as the public is concerned, as would be the case if a minor or merely technical amendment in which the public is not particularly interested were involved.”) </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Summary</HD> This direct final rule (DFR) revises the regulatory provisions in 30 CFR 250.1158 in response to the applicable provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBB) Public Law 119-21, which was signed into law on July 4, 2025, by the President. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) authorizes the Secretary to promulgate regulations that carry out the provisions in OCSLA, including provisions that require lessees to produce any oil or gas, or both, at rates consistent with applicable law and orders to assure the maximum rate of production that may be sustained without loss of ultimate recovery of oil or gas, or both, under sound engineering and economic principles, and that is safe for the duration of the activity. BSEE performs technical analyses for downhole commingling to ensure that production methods meet OCSLA's requirement for ultimate recovery and safety. This rule revises the BSEE regulations to reflect the offshore commingling language in the OBBB regarding safety and ultimate recovery and to clarify how BSEE will apply the OBBB's standards when reviewing commingling requests. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Statutory and Regulatory Authority and Responsibilities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Purpose and Summary of the Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Section-by-Section Discussion of Changes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Procedural Matters</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Statutory and Regulatory Authority and Responsibilities</HD> The Department's authority for this direct final rule is derived from OCSLA, codified at 43 U.S.C. 1331-1356a. OCSLA, enacted in 1953 and substantially revised in 1978, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) to regulate and administer mineral and oil and gas exploration, development, and production operations on the OCS. The Secretary has delegated authority to perform certain of these functions to BSEE under Secretary's Order 3299. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/documents/3299a2-establishment_of_the_bureau_of_ocean_energy_management_the_bureau_of_safety_and_environmental_enforcement_and_the_office_of_natural_resources_revenue.pdf.</E> </FTNT> To carry out its responsibilities, BSEE regulates offshore oil and gas and mineral operations to enhance the safety of oil and gas and mineral exploration, development, and production on the OCS, and to implement advancements in technology. BSEE also conducts onsite inspections to ensure compliance with regulations, lease terms, and approved plans and permits. Detailed information concerning the BSEE-administered regulations and guidance to the offshore oil and gas and mineral industries may be found on BSEE's website at: <E T="03">https://www.bsee.gov/protection.</E> BSEE administers a regulatory program that covers a wide range of OCS facilities and activities that offshore operators  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> perform throughout the OCS. <E T="03">See</E> 30 CFR part 250. This DFR is applicable to requests for BSEE approval of downhole commingling operations. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The regulations at 30 CFR part 250 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”) and “the person actually performing the activity to which the requirement applies” (30 CFR 250.146(c)). For convenience, this preamble will refer to these regulated entities as “operators” unless otherwise indicated. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Purpose and Summary of the Rulemaking</HD> Under section 50102 of the Act, it provides that the “Secretary of the Interior shall approve a request of an operator to commingle oil or gas production from multiple reservoirs within a single wellbore completed on the outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of America Region unless the Secretary of the Interior determines that conclusive evidence establishes that the commingling—(1) could not be conducted by the operator in a safe manner; or (2) would result in an ultimate recovery from the applicable reservoirs to be reduced in comparison to the expected recovery of those reservoirs if they had not been commingled.” OCSLA authorizes the Secretary to promulgate regul ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━