BOEM Issues Technical Updates to Offshore Oil and Gas Guidance

06/25/2020
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Executive Order (E.O.) 13891 of October 9, 2019, Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency Guidance Documents, and the Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-20-02, issued October 31, 2019, which provides guidance on implementing the E.O., require that each Federal agency establish or maintain on its website a single, searchable, indexed database that contains or links to all guidance documents in effect from the agency.

On February 28, 2020, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) established its Guidance Portal, which contains all of the guidance documents that BOEM intends to cite, use or rely on.  BOEM’s portal can be accessed at:  http://www.boem.gov/guidance.  Since that time, in accordance with E.O 13891 and M-20-02, ten Notices to Lessees and Operators (NTLs), have been revised, reissued, and uploaded to the portal.  Seven of these NTLs are applicable to oil and gas operations in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico, one of which is a joint NTL with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.  One NTL is applicable to the Pacific OCS, one to the Alaska OCS, and one is applicable to all areas of the OCS.  The updates, which are largely technical and do not change the NTLs in a substantial way, are recommended rather than mandatory.  The NTLs are as follows: