US regulators said Monday that Petrobras America passed a surprise drill to prove its ability to respond to a hypothetical blowout at one of its deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said last week's unannounced table-top exercise tested Petrobras' response to an imaginary loss of well control. It had to show that it could quickly notify state and federal authorities and deploy contractors to contain the blowout.
It was the first drill of the sort since BP's Macondo disaster last year. The Coast Guard and Louisiana emergency officials also participated.
"The preliminary results of the drill were positive; a final evaluation will follow when analysis of all documentation is completed," BOEM said.
BOEM spokeswoman Eileen Angelico declined to give details of the hypothetical blowout or Petrobras' response.
Petrobras has received one deepwater drilling permit since regulators resumed permitting in late February after lifting the Macondo moratorium. On September 2, BOEM approved its revised application to drill a development well in 8,143 feet of water in Walker Ridge block 250.
BOEM Director Michael Bromwich called the exercise one of the agency's many techniques to ensure the safety of offshore oil and gas operations.
"The spill drill program can help us validate that operators are appropriate trained in effective containment deployment," he said in a statement. "It is a natural extension of our enhanced safety and environmental regulations and standards put in place following the Deepwater Horizon tragedy."
The former Minerals Management Service started the unannounced drills in 1989.
