Overview
The MMS is notifying offshore lease owners and operators via NTL 2009-N13 that new fees will be collected to recover the costs of offshore inspections conducted during Fiscal Year 2010 (Note: Fiscal Year 2010 began October 1, 2009). The NTL is a result of Title 1, Section 115 of the Fiscal Year 2010 DOI, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (Public Law 111-88, October 30, 2009) mandating MMS collect a non-refundable inspection fee for facilities on the OCS.

MMS will collect this inspection fee based on your facility inventory as of October 1, 2009 for the following facilities subject to inspection by MMS - that are above the waterline, except MODUs.

The inspection fees for 2010 include:

• $2,000 for facilities with no wells, but with processing equipment and gathering lines;
• $3,250 for facilities with one to 10 wells, with any combination of active or inactive wells; and
• $6,000 for facilities with more than 10 wells, with any combination of active or inactive wells.

MMS will bill Operators by December 30, 2009, with payment required within 30 days of billing. You will not be able to use the Pay.Gov system to make these payments.

The NTL can be viewed at: http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/regulate/regs/ntls/2009NTLs/09-N13.pdf

For further information contact Cathy Thornton (cathy.thornton@jccteam.com) at JCC 281.578.3388