According to a statement of the Interior Department on Wednesday, gas and oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico must seal all inactive wells and production platforms that are not in use.

The Interior Department said that almost 3,000 inactive wells and 650 production platforms that are not in use can be a threat to the environment. The new initiative aims to clean all the idle iron, inactive wells and platforms that pose threat to the Gulf, because it may pose hazards to shipping and greater risks of leaks when accidents occur.

The Interior Department already has some regulations with regard to the permanent plugging of old wells and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. However, these regulations are rarely enforced. According to industry sources, the old wells must be sealed with subsea safety seals and old platforms must be dismantled.

Federal regulations require that idle structures must be decommissioned. It is a process that involves scrapping steel platforms, iron and pipelines or they can be turned into artificial reliefs. The decommission process must be done within one year of the expiration date of the lease.

According to the executives of gulf coast oil industry, if a single well still producing and still active, regulators will allow the other wells that are close to it to be closed with temporary seals only. According to operators, inactive wells can become economically viable again depending on the prices of oil. The inactive wells may operate again if oil prices will increase.

According to a senior industry executive, some of the platforms in the Gulf of Mexico are already 40 to 50 years old. The executive said that some of the owners of these wells already gone out of business.