Firms seeking offshore drilling permits in Europe may have to meet EU-wide standards The European Commission is to propose tightening the rules for deep-water drilling in the oil industry.
The move follows April’s devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
There are 900 offshore wells in European waters, although only one country – Norway – currently allows drilling at depths comparable to BP’s ill-fated Deepwater Horizon facility.
The Commission wants to ensure that firms drilling in European waters can cover the costs of a spill.
The BP disaster not only allowed more than 4m barrels of oil to pollute the sea, it also frightened oil regulators worldwide. If it could happen once, they thought, it could happen again.
The EU Energy Commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, wants any company drilling within European waters to prove it has either the cash in the bank to pay for a clean-up, or appropriate insurance to cover the cost.
He also intends to change rules that currently make companies liable for costs if they are drilling up to 12 nautical miles from shore. He wants this distance extended to 200 nautical miles.
Greenpeace activists boarded a Greenland in protest at drilling Scottish Lib Dem MEP George Lyon said: “The proposed voluntary moratorium will allow European safety standards to be revised and renewed without harming the operations of North Sea rigs that already have outstanding safety records.”
Greenpeace is opposed to deep-water drilling and has been involved in high-profile protests in recent weeks.
The environmental group ended its blockade of a drilling ship 100 miles off Shetland late last month after oil company Chevron won a second court order.
Protesters had brought drill ship Stena Carron to a standstill by swimming in front of it.
Earlier they spent five days in a pod which they had attached to the ship’s anchor chain, before Chevron took legal action to remove it.
And four Greenpeace activists were arrested at the beginning of September after giving up their occupation of a Scottish company’s drilling rig off Greenland.
The group had boarded the rig, which was operated on behalf of Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy.
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