The Obama administration is expected to remain focused on tightening regulatory oversight of the U.S. offshore oil industry and may delay lifting a ban on deepwater drilling after the latest accident in the Gulf of Mexico, analysts say. Thursday's fire on a Mariner Energy oil and natural-gas platform in shallow waters of the gulf was a major setback for companies hoping for an early end to the U.S. government's drilling moratorium and raised more questions about the safety of offshore drilling. Interior Department officials declined to comment on whether the Mariner accident would prompt Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to consider expanding the current deepwater drilling moratorium to shallow waters. Such an expansion of the ban would hurt the oil industry, which has complained that the department has been too slow to approve permits for shallow water drilling since the massive BP (British Petroleum) gulf oil spill. Unlike the explosion of BP's rig—which killed 11 people and led to the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history—the fire at the Mariner Energy platform 160 kilometers south of Louisiana killed nobody and sent no crude leaking into the water.
