Risk Management and Financial Assurance for OCS Lease and Grant Obligations

The Department of the Interior, acting through BOEM, is finalizing new regulations to modify its criteria for determining whether oil, gas, and sulfur lessees, right-of-use and easement grant holders, and pipeline right-of-way grant holders are required to provide bonds or other financial assurance above the regulatorily prescribed base bonds to ensure compliance with their Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act obligations. This final rule will: streamline the criteria used for evaluating the financial health of lessees and grantees; codify the utilization of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s probabilistic estimates of decommissioning cost for determining the amount of supplemental financial assurance required; remove restrictive provisions for third-party guarantees and decommissioning accounts; add new criteria for which a bond or third-party guarantee that was provided as supplemental financial assurance may be canceled; and clarify bonding requirements for RUEs serving Federal leases. On June 29, 2023, BOEM published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register at 88 FR 42136 which proposed amendments that impact this information collection. BOEM is submitting this information collection clearance package to request OMB approval for revision of OMB control number 1010-0114.

The latest form for Risk Management and Financial Assurance for OCS Lease and Grant Obligations expires 2027-07-31 and is listed under ICR 202310-1010-003.

550.115-116; 119 - Performance Standards

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Energy - Energy Resource Management