Inspection and Enforcement

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

Railroad Valley Oil Well, Battle Mountain NV

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Oil & Gas Inspections and Enforcement

BLM performs thousands of inspections each year on oil and gas leases. In Fiscal Year 2011, for example, BLM inspectors made more than 33,200 inspections of lease sites. In the past four years (since FY 2007), the number of inspections has risen more than 40 percent, with environmental inspections rising from 12,000 to more nearly 20,000. The chart below includes data from Fiscal Year 2007 and Fiscal Year 2011 for all types of inspections. Descriptions of the types of inspections are included at the right.

Facts About Federal Energy Leasing and Development

Types of Inspections

Production Inspections--conducted on production facilities to ensure that equipment, practices, and procedures are in accordance with the regulations, orders and any applicable approval documents.

Drilling Inspections--conducted on a well being drilled. The operations are inspected to ensure that equipment, practices, and procedures are in accordance with the approval document.

Abandonment Inspections--conducted during the plugging of an oil and gas wells. These could be depleted producing wells or newly drilled dry holes.

Workover Inspections--of workover operations conducted on an existing producing, depleted producer or service well. The operations are inspected to ensure that equipment, practices, and procedures are in accordance with the approval document.

Environmental Inspections--typically are performed by Natural Resource Specialists (NRS), Environmental Scientists (ES), or other resource program specialists (wildlife biologists, archaeologist, etc.). Environmental inspections include inspection of reclamation, erosion concerns, topsoil stock piling, location, road, and pit construction and use, spills, water disposal methods, tank battery dikes and surface hazards. Inspections to insure abandoned locations are properly reclaimed are included. Post approval inspections that look specifically at surface environmental impacts are also included.

Records Verification Inspections--review production records and compares them to production reports sent to MMS. This type of inspection may not require an onsite visit.

Undesirable Event Inspections--conducted when spills or accidents occurs on an oil and gas lease.

Alleged Theft Inspections--conducted when an alleged theft of production is reported to a BLM Field Office by the operator or the public.

Inspections by State Offices

Below is a chart of BLM inspections by nine BLM state offices. Wyoming topped the list with more than 11,800 inspections in Fiscal Year 2011. The New Mexico State Office handled more than 9,500 inspections. In both states the majority of inspections were environmental inspections.