Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

Oil Spill Response Plan

Cancelled Text: On 12/26/2024, the Department of Interior issued a letter to the project sponsor denying their request for additional Suspension of Production for the three Liberty Units (lease). 

Pause Text: On 3/10/2020, BSEE met with the project sponsor. The project sponsor had not yet completed much work on the Request for Additional Information that was issued in July of 2019.  Therefore, BSEE identified they were unable to determine a timeline for action completion, as the project sponsor did not have a potential date for additional information submission. BSEE requested the "Authorization and Certification" action be placed in "paused" status. 

On 12/04/2020, the project sponsor provided additional information to BSEE. BSEE determined the submission wasn't sufficient to deem the application complete. In August 2021, BSEE confirmed the project sponsor has yet provide a sufficient response.

The only remaining Federal action for this project is BSEE "authorization and certification," which cannot occur until the project sponsor submits, and BSEE approves, an oil spill response plan (OSRP). The project sponsor has not yet submitted a complete OSRP for BSEE review and has requested a suspension of lease operations (SOO) to provide more time to submit a complete OSRP. BSEE anticipates making a decision on the SOO request by the end of December 2021. Because BSEE could grant an SOO that extends as many as 2 years, BSEE is revising the completion dates for "Completed Application Received" and "Issuance of Decision" from 12/26/2021 to 12/26/2023. BOEM will revise the completion dates if the term of any SOO is different from that represented.