The European Parliament yesterday approved a non-legislative resolution calling on the EU to make sure it tightens safety rules on deep-sea oil drilling but it rejected a call for a moratorium.
The Parliament’s environment committee had urged MEPs to vote for a moratorium until the current laws are strengthened and the investigation completed into the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year.
Besides more safety legislation, the resolution calls for compensation in case of a spill.
The four MEPs who voted on the resolution yesterday – Simon Busuttil and David Casa for the Nationalist Party and Louis Grech and Edward Scicluna for Labour – all preferred a toned down text than the original moratorium. Labour MEP John Attard Montalto was not present for the vote.
Despite the blow dealt by the Parliament to those advocating a moratorium, the Commission is still expected to continue pushing for one. German Commissioner Gunter Oettinger is expected to make a formal proposal next week prior to a meeting of EU energy ministers over the issue on Friday.
According to an unpublished draft proposal, the Commission is planning to call upon its member states to suspend the licensing of complex oil or gas exploration operations until technical investigations into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon accident off the US coast are completed and the European offshore safety regime has been reviewed.
European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger is expected to say that Europe’s myriad regulations for offshore exploration are too fragmented to cope with an industry that is drilling farther and farther offshore in deep, rough waters as “easy oil” runs out.
The draft proposal observes that there are more than 1,000 installations in the northeast Atlantic, over 100 in the Mediterranean and plans for new exploration off the coasts of Cyprus and Malta.
“Licensing stands out as the first key tool to ensure the safety of new drillings in complex environments,” says the draft proposal, which would need the approval of the European Union’s Parliament and its 27 member countries before taking effect.
“The licensing regime needs to be backed up by an unequivocal liability regime,” it adds.
Malta has not yet taken an official position on the issue. When asked last week, a government spokesman said the island was in favour of more safety rules but he stopped short of declaring a formal position on a possible moratorium.
Although no drilling is current being conducted by Malta, a moratorium at this stage could disrupt plans by two licence holders to start drilling offshore oil wells in Maltese waters in the near future.
Malta has two active licences for oil exploration and drilling in its waters, allocated to Heritage Oil in December 2007 and Malta Oil Plc Limited in July 2008. Both companies have so far only performed exploration activities in the areas allocated to them although both have publicly stated that they intend to start drilling soon.