Brussels plans strict new controls for offshore oil drilling | Business | The Guardian

Brussels plans strict new controls for offshore oil drilling | Business | The Guardian

The European commission is to reveal plans for tougher controls on offshore oil and gas drilling tomorrow. It would force national governments to abide by rules set in Brussels and extend liability for oil companies in the event of a disaster, The Guardian has learned.

The commission will also call for a moratorium on "complex" drilling projects in Europe until the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico have been digested – a move that has been rejected by Britain.

If the commission proposals became European law they would have far-reaching effects on the UK oil industry. More than half the offshore rigs in the EU are in British waters.

EU national governments would continue to license companies for drilling but would have to stick to rules set by the European commission under the proposals, to be announced by Günther Ottinger, energy commissioner.

"We have to make sure that a disaster similar to the one in the Gulf of Mexico will never happen in European waters. This is why we propose that best practices already existing in Europe will become the standard throughout the European Union," Ottinger is expected to say.