Federal report on drilling ban coming this week

The head of the Interior Department’s overhauled offshore drilling agency will deliver Interior Secretary Ken Salazar a report this week that contains recommendations on the federal deepwater oil-and-gas drilling ban, officials said.

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Michael Bromwich’s imminent report comes amid heavy political pressure on the White House from the industry and Gulf Coast lawmakers to lift the ban before its scheduled Nov. 30 expiration.

Salazar and Bromwich announced the report’s timing at a Washington hearing of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which the White House created to probe the spill.

“I will take a good and hard look and study it,” Salazar said. The Interior officials also said that another round of new safety rules is forthcoming.

Bromwich warned not to expect drilling to resume immediately once the ban is ultimately lifted, noting the need for drillers to show compliance with new requirements.

He warned not to expect drilling to resume “in the next day or even the next week,” once the limits are removed. Asked how many rigs he expected to be drilling in the first month after the ban is removed, Bromwich replied, “In the first month, probably very few.”