President Barack Obama’s moratorium on deep-water drilling is likely to end before it is set to expire Nov. 30, said William Reilly, co-chairman of a presidential panel probing the BP PLC spill.

“I’ll be amazed if the moratorium is not lifted before November 30,” Reilly said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. It’s unclear “why it’s taking so long” to restart deep-water drilling, he said.

The administration halted drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet after BP’s Macondo well, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, blew out April 20. The explosion killed 11 workers and set off the biggest U.S. oil spill.