April 18, 2017

Op-ed: Drain the Swamp, Not The Gulf

Last week, John Melko, a partner in the Houston office of Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP and chair of the firm’s Financial Restructuring and Reorganization Practice Group, penned this op-ed for the Oil & Gas Financial Journal.

John correctly pointed out how the NTL issued by BOEM late last year is a solution in search of a problem: “Despite all the recent bankruptcies of offshore operators, the government has not had to spend any of its (i.e., our) money to perform plugging and abandonment (P&A) or decommissioning work. The reasons are explained below, but keep that fact in mind as you think about the effect that NTL-2016 and the increased bonding requirements have had, and will have, on the industry.”

Thank you John for your perspective. We encourage you all to check it out!