THE US offshore drilling regulator has issued a further five citations against BP relating to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
The latest citations come on top of seven others the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement handed to BP earlier this year for the firm’s role in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 men and spilled nearly 5million barrels of oil into the sea.
The latest citations focus on BP’s failure to conduct an accurate pressure-integrity test and failure to suspend drilling operations when the approved safe drilling margin for the well was not maintained.
Oil major Shell said yesterday it had teamed up with Eni to buy a prospective deepwater oil block offshore Nigeria.
A Shell spokesman said both companies would own half of the OPL 245 block, which industry experts have estimated to hold more than 9billion barrels of oil. He said Eni would be operator.
The prospect is close to Total’s Akpo block, which has plateau production of about 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.