WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a final set of regulations on offshore oil and gas drilling that are aimed at preventing the kind of equipment failures that caused the disastrous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The publication of the rules, which the administration released in draft form last year, is timed just ahead of the sixth anniversary of the April 20 explosion on a BP oil rig that killed 11 and sent millions of barrels of oil into the gulf. The new rules come as the Obama administration has proposed opening up some pristine Arctic waters off Alaska to new drilling, angering environmentalists.

The Interior Department rules represent the final in a series of actions responding to the spill, including tougher inspection requirements and an overhaul of the government agencies that oversee offshore drilling. The rules announced Thursday are intended to tighten the safety requirements on underwater drilling equipment and well-control operations.

In particular, the new rules will tighten controls on blowout preventers, the industry-standard devices that are the last line of protection to stop explosions in undersea oil and gas wells. The 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig was caused in part by the buckling of a section of drill pipe, prompting the malfunction of a supposedly fail-safe blowout preventer on a BP well.