BP's Scottish Deepwater Foray Draws Environmental Critics

23 March 2012

Mar. 2012 - The Department of Energy and Climate Change has granted BP permission to drill the deepwater North Uist oil well, northwest of the Shetland Islands. The well is situated in Block 213/25c in a water depth of 4,232 feet (1,290 meters).

LONDON - BP PLC has been given its first permit to drill a deepwater well off the northwest coast of Scotland's remote Shetland Islands since the Deepwater Horizon disaster two years ago, although the decision announced Thursday raised the heckles of environmental campaigners who claim the oil heavyweight's track record is cause for alarm.

The decision by the Department of Energy and Climate Change to grant BP permission to drill the 1,290-meter-deep North Uist well comes only a day after U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne delivered a package of incentives to spur investment in exploring the hard-to-access waters of the far western North Sea.