BHP Billiton Petroleum announced Tuesday that it brought a newly drilled well into production in the Gulf of Mexico on May 30-the first since the moratorium was enacted in May of last year.
BHP Billiton Petroleum Chief Executive, J. Michael Yeager, said, "We are pleased to be able to demonstrate that deepwater drilling and production can resume in a safe and reliable manner. Our organization has worked very hard over the past several months with regulators to have the ability to resume drilling operations and add new production to our deepwater Gulf of Mexico portfolio."
BHP Billiton Petroleum also received approval and began drilling a second deepwater production well (SB-101) on the Shenzi field (195 kilometers off the Louisiana coastline) on June 2.