Gulf bounce back seen distant after spill

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Energy companies that operate in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico are having trouble obtaining permits for activities that are allowed under the government's drilling halt and a return to normal is not seen for years by some.

The government put in place a deepwater drilling moratorium in May following BP Plc's disastrous Macondo well rupture that killed 11 people and caused a record crude oil leak.

The drilling halt is expected to be lifted in November, but new safety regulations and increased scrutiny from regulators will likely delay activity more, executives attending Barclays Capital CEO Energy-Power conference told investors on Thursday.

For example U.S. oil and gas company Noble Energy Inc said it does not expect to be able to restart its exploration program in the Gulf until later in 2011.

"It will take a long time to get those permits," Chuck Davidson, the company's chief executive officer said in remarks broadcast on the Internet, noting that permits for activity allowed under the moratorium were also hard to come by.

Noble had to submit its permit to complete a well at its Galapagos field in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico nine times before it received approval, Davidson said.

And a permit to complete a second well at Galapagos had to be submitted to the government's new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management six times, the executive said.

Alf Thorkildsen, the chief executive officer of Norway's Seadrill Ltd told Reuters Insider in an interview a recovery in the Gulf was years away.

"I think within two years' time we will be back up at more or less the same levels as before the moratorium," Thorkildsen said.

READY, SET, DRILL

The chief executive officer of Marathon Oil Corp said any permitting delays could be costly for his company.

"We have a rig showing up in the Gulf of Mexico probably in the next few weeks, Marathon CEO Clarence Cazalot said at the Detroit Economic Club in downtown Detroit on Thursday.

"It's a rig that costs us about half a million dollars a day whether it's working or not, so we very much want to put it to work."

Exxon Mobil Corp , the world's largest publicly traded oil company, had its Hadrian project sidelined by the moratorium, but the company said on Thursday it will be ready to resume activity.

"We are continuing to progress development activities so we are ready to proceed when the drilling moratorium is lifted," Andrew Swiger, senior vice president at Exxon told the Barclay's conference.

Along with Hadrian, Exxon also stopped drilling a development well at its Hoover/Diana prospect due to the government's action.

Jim Hackett, the chief executive officer of Anadarko Petroleum Corp told investors in New York he believed activity in the Gulf might resume more quickly than people expected, due to a mixture of "politics and practicality."

The world needs the oil and gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, Hackett said. Still, the Houston company has pulled $100 million in spending earmarked for the Gulf and shifted it to onshore projects.

Anadarko, which owns a 25 percent stake in BP's rupture Macondo well, will likely not face any liabilities related to that accident, Hackett said.

"Our view is that we don't owe anything," Hackett said.

The executive said he had not seen any media, company or government reports on the accident that changed the company's view about the accident. In June, Anadarko characterized BP's behavior before the blowout as "reckless" and likely represented "gross negligence or willful misconduct."

(Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; editing by Andre Grenon)

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