Interior paves way for 13 companies to resume gulf deepwater drilling

摘要

The Obama administration told 13 oil and natural gas com-npanies last week that they might be able to skip a new round of nlengthy environmental reviews in order to resume deepwater oil nand natural gas drilling activities in the Gulf of Mexico.nThe companies, including Chevron and Shell, all had nsome deepwater gulf drilling activities suspended by the ntemporary moratorium that the Interior Department issued nin the wake of last summer’s BP oil spill. Interior lifted the nban last October, but many companies have complained nthat the new safety regulations that the department issued nafter the disaster have continued to stall drilling.