NEW ORLEANS -- The final offshore drilling safety rule by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) should be out this week, possibly today, the agency's director said yesterday.

Since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and subsequent oil spill, offshore oil and gas companies active in U.S. waters have been operating according to a set of interim rules and guidelines as the Obama administration worked on a final policy document.

That document is nearly complete and could be made publicly available today and in the Federal Register by the end of the week, BSEE Director James Watson said.

"We expect to get this final drilling safety rule out this week," Watson announced during a speech before members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, who are gathered in New Orleans this week for a deepwater technical symposium.

Watson said the new rules will change the regulatory regime the industry has been functioning under up to now. Those changes are a result of new insight and information accrued during the public comment period, during which BSEE invited outside input on what the final document should look like.

"[The industry] came to us with some very good recommendations for changes, and I think you'll be pleased when this rule becomes effective this week," he said. "It will adjust many of the things we've gotten comment on from the industry, so I'm really excited about that."

Part of the final drilling safety rule will include guidance for BSEE inspectors and investigators on when and how incidents of noncompliance (INC) reports are issued. INCs are a BSEE determination that an offshore oil and gas company ignored or violated regulations, contributing to a serious incident.

Watson suggested that inclusion of INC issuance guidelines was more a win for BSEE regulators than for industry.

"We've never actually put into writing any sort of policy document that will guide our inspectors and our engineers and our district managers in any kind of application of the intent that was put into place well over a year ago now," he said. "So that will be coming out this week as well."

Concern over emergency systems

Though largely expressing satisfaction with BSEE's development of new offshore drilling safety rules and with the industry's participation in that process, Watson expressed concern with how companies were coming up with their own internal safety and emergency management systems (SEMS).

Offshore drillers are required by law to demonstrate that they've developed an internal SEMS and that the companies will audit their SEMS planning within a year of their development.

Firms are required to notify BSEE of a pending audit 30 days before performing it, a procedure seemingly designed to give BSEE a chance to send an observer during the audit. It's approaching almost two years since the initial SEMS I guidance was issued, and so far BSEE has received relatively few notifications that audits are taking place, Watson warned, suggesting that SEMS development isn't proceeding as well as regulators had expected it to.

"What is required, and what is getting me nervous, is that in the first two years since the rule came out, there are supposed to be company audits, and what is required to show us is that you're going to schedule an audit," he said. "A year has already gone by, and we haven't seen too many 30-day notices."

Nevertheless, Watson said the revised SEMS II rules will maintain the "nonprescriptive" approach that his agency is taking. BSEE officials describe the approach as a more effective means of getting the oil and gas industry to embrace a culture of safety in offshore oil and gas exploration and production.

The SEMS plan "is a company management plan; it's not a government plan," Watson said.