Category Archives: fossil fuels

energy policy, fossil fuels, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Common Dreams: Russia Shuts Greenpeace Out of Arctic Sea Route, Stifles Criticism of Oil Industry

Leave a comment

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/08/21-11

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2013 5:39 PM

CONTACT: Greenpeace
Sune Scheller, Greenpeace communications, sune.scheller@greenpeace.org or +45 27144257
Greenpeace International press desk, pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org or +31 20 718 24 70

WASHINGTON – August 21 – Barents Sea, August 21, 2013 – The Russian government has denied permission for the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise to enter the increasingly busy Northern Sea Route (NSR), despite the ship having fulfilled all the requirements for such an entry.

Greenpeace International claims the decision is an attempt to prevent it from exposing the activities of Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft. Multiple vessels contracted by Rosneft and US partner ExxonMobil are conducting seismic testing and geological work in the Kara Sea in preparation for offshore Arctic drilling.

“This is a thinly veiled attempt to stifle peaceful protest and keep international attention away from Arctic oil exploration in Russia. The Arctic Sunrise is a fully equipped icebreaker with significant experience of operating in these conditions, while the oil companies operating here are taking unprecedented risks in an area teeming with polar bears, whales, and other Arctic wildlife,” says Christy Ferguson, Greenpeace Arctic Campaigner aboard the Arctic Sunrise.

“The decision to deny us entry to the Kara Sea is completely unjustified and raises serious questions about the level of collusion between the Russian authorities and the oil companies themselves. Over three million people are behind our campaign, and they want to know what Russia and its Western oil partners are trying to hide here in the Arctic.”

Greenpeace International entered three detailed applications for entry to the Northern Sea Route Administration, clearly stating its intentions to engage in peaceful and lawful protest. All applications were rejected. (1) The latest application was refused on the grounds that the information provided on the ice strengthening was apparently insufficient. From the pattern of refusals it is clear that the NSR administration has never been interested in granting Greenpeace access. The refusal is in violation of international law including the right to freedom of navigation (2).

None of the six oil exploration vessels operating for Rosneft and ExxonMobil in the area has an ice classification as high as the Arctic Sunrise. More than 400 vessels have been granted access to the Northern Sea Route this year, many of them with an inferior classification to that of the Arctic Sunrise, which is classed as an icebreaker (3).

Greenpeace International has written to the head of the Northern Sea Route Administration with an urgent request to reverse the unjustified decision. As the Arctic Sunrise is a Dutch flagged-vessel, a copy of the letter has also been sent to the Dutch Infrastructure and Foreign Ministries.

The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise is on a month-long expedition in the Arctic to expose and protest oil exploration.

Further information:
-Statement from the independent Det Norske Veritas (DNV) on the classification of the Arctic Sunrise: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/briefings/climate/2013/DNV-classification-letter.pdf

fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, marine pollution, ocean pollution, oil pollution

Fuel Fix: Black Elk Energy: Fatal fire hit finances, production

Leave a comment

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/08/16/black-elk-energy-fatal-fire-hit-finances-production/

Posted on August 16, 2013 at 7:30 am by Jennifer A. Dlouhy in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore

Houston-based Black Elk Energy says it is still dealing with financial fallout from last year’s fatal explosion at one of its Gulf of Mexico production platforms, even as federal investigators continue to probe the company’s overall safety.

The company said the accident hurt its financial results, that oil production slowed when the accident led to delays in obtaining permits for ordinary maintenance work and that it spent more than expected for “non-recurring regulatory, legal and platform restoration costs” tied to the incident. Black Elk provided the updates in investor guidance for the second half of 2013.

The company forecast that for July through December of this year, its daily production will average 13,500 to 14,500 barrels of oil equivalent, capital expenditures will be $45 million to $55 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization will be $75 million to $85 million.

Legal fallout: Oil platform owner sued over blast in Gulf

Three people died and several others were injured in the explosion and fire last Nov. 16 at Black Elk’s West Delta 32 production platform 18 miles off the Louisiana coast. The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement still is probing the incident, but the company has said a cutting torch may have ignited flammable vapors on the platform standing in 56 feet of water. Black Elk Energy has promised to release the report from a third-party investigation the company commissioned.

At the safety bureau’s request, Black Elk Energy gave the federal regulators a “performance improvement plan” last December and submitted an analysis of its previous violations in January. Facilities that were not producing at the time of the explosion were forced to stay offline temporarily .

The firm had racked up more than 300 documented mistakes and violations offshore before the fatal fire, and a safety bureau official said Thursday that the rates of those incidents – called incidents of non-compliance – have not declined since.

“We still have a lot of concerns,” the official said, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

“Black Elk has met most of the requirements that were stipulated,” the official said, but the company “has not done enough to demonstrate to us that their overall performance is improving to the point we think it should be.”

Related story: Black Elk CEO vows vindication

Regulators have not given Black Elk Energy approval to resume production at its damaged platform, but they allowed repairs to begin in May. Those repairs are complete, the company said in a statement, adding:
“Over the past eight months, Black Elk officials, staff and advisers have worked cooperatively with government officials at the local, state and federal level to provide support for the victims and their families, analyze the underlying causes of the incident and implement policy and procedural improvements to minimize the risk of similar incidents in the future.”

The company otherwise had no response to the comments from the regulatory official.
The Black Elk explosion was the first in a recent spate of accidents in shallow Gulf of Mexico waters that have revived concerns about the risks of oil and gas production close to shore.

Last month, a gas well in the Gulf of Mexico blew out, forcing the evacuation of 44 workers and igniting a fire that raged for nearly two days.

Just weeks before, a briny mix of gas, light condensate and salt water began leaking out of a 40-year-old Energy Resource Technology well while workers were trying to permanently plug it.

Founded in 2007 by a former BP and Amoco executive, Black Elk now holds interests in more than 1,000 wells connected to 176 platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been operating facilities in the Gulf of Mexico since 2010.

Its aggressive acquisition strategy has focused on buying old facilities and reworking offshore wells to eke out more hydrocarbons.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, fracking, natural resource management, oil pollution

CBS News: Fishermen concerned about industry if fracking approved

Leave a comment

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2013/08/15/nl-fracking-port-au-port-815.html
Posted: Aug 15, 2013 2:40 PM NT Last Updated: Aug 15, 2013 6:02 PM NT

West coast fishermen wary of possible problems

Port au Port Peninsula fishermen voiced concerns at a meeting Wednesday night about the future of their industry if fracking were to be approved near the waters where they fish. About 100 people showed up to the meeting in Lourdes to discuss the possible implications of the process.

Fracking involves injecting chemicals and water into rock at a high pressure in order to extract oil. Terry Tucker, a fisherman in the area, said he doesn’t think fracking is a fool-proof process.

Fishermen on the Port au Port Peninsula are concerned about fracking plans in the area. Fracking is a technique which injects oil, water and chemicals into wells to draw out oil.Fishermen on the Port au Port Peninsula are concerned about fracking plans in the area. “They’re pumping a bunch of chemicals down into the ground, they’re pumping it down into a mile down – no one really knows what goes on down there,” Tucker said.

“This is all just a guess and this is a big chance to take. If things go wrong and there’s no fix, and NASA engineers can’t fix it, and it’s just unfixable. So then this place here just goes – everything goes.”

Tucker said he actually used to work in the fracking industry, but he didn’t like what he saw.

“It’s actually scary when you think of what they were doing because after the job was done, I went over cause I was just there watching, and I grabbed a handful of the Š sand that we put down into the ground, and just dumped on the ground,” he said.

“And when I had Š the sand in my hand, one of the chief engineers ran over to me and said, ‘Get that out of your hand, wash your hands, do you know what’s in that?’ They just dumped it in a field, just in a cattle field, so it seems to me that they weren’t really too concerned about just dumping that stuff into a cattle field and I don’t think they’d be really concerned about dumping that stuff into Bay St. George or Port au Port Bay where I fish.”

Tucker said he would be happy to have more development in the area, but doesn’t think it would be worth the risk to the natural environment.

“I’d love to see development here. I’d love to see companies coming in and bring jobs and bring money and bring everything to the place, but I don’t think it’s worth the chance of destroying something, even if there’s a small, small chance that it could just go to crap,” he said.

“I hope that the government really, really looks into this. I hope they’re not blinded by what some of the oil companies are probably going to offer.”

Black Spruce Exploration is planning to establish fracking wells on the Port au Port Peninsula, pending approvals from government and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

Fishermen concerned about industry if fracking approved, West coast fishermen wary of possible problems

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, fracking, natural resource management, tar sands

Scientific American: High Levels of Arsenic Found in Groundwater Near Fracking Sites

Leave a comment

article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=high-levels-of-arsenic-found-in-ground-water-near-fracking-sites

study: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4011724

Natural gas has become a leading source of alternative energy with the advent of techniques to economically extract gas reserves from deep shale formations. Here, we present an assessment of private well water quality in aquifers overlying the Barnett Shale formation of North Texas. We evaluated samples from 100 private drinking water wells using analytical chemistry techniques. Analyses revealed that arsenic, selenium, strontium and total dissolved solids (TDS) exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water Maximum Contaminant Limit (MCL) in some samples from private water wells located within 3 km of active natural gas wells. Lower levels of arsenic, selenium, strontium, and barium were detected at reference sites outside the Barnett Shale region as well as sites within the Barnett Shale region located more than 3 km from active natural gas wells. Methanol and ethanol were also detected in 29% of samples. Samples exceeding MCL levels were randomly distributed within areas of active natural gas extraction, and the spatial patterns in our data suggest that elevated constituent levels could be due to a variety of factors including mobilization of natural constituents, hydrogeochemical changes from lowering of the water table, or industrial accidents such as faulty gas well casings.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, fracking, tar sands, Uncategorized

TexasSharon.com: Kids in fracking sacrifice zones depict trauma in crayon drawings.

Leave a comment

Kids in fracking sacrifice zones depict trauma in crayon drawings.

by TXSHARON on AUGUST 6, 2013
in NDA, RANGE RESOURCES

“Drawing is a natural mode of communication that children rarely resist and that offers a way to express feelings and thoughts in a manner that is less threatening than strictly verbal means. For the child who has experienced trauma or loss, it helps to externalize emotions and events too painful to speak out loud and is one of the only means of conveying the complexities of painful experiences, repressed memories, or unspoken fears, anxieties, or guilt.” Using Drawing as Intervention with Traumatized Children.

Aly Hallowich expressed her trauma in a drawing done before she was gagged by Range Resources.

children's image

I’m guessing this drawing was made when Aly was 5 or 6 because according to the court transcript, she was 7 when she was gagged.

MRS. HALLOWICH: We have agreed to this because we needed to get the children out of there for their health and safety. My concern is they’re minors. I’m not quite sure I fully understand. We know we’re signing for silence forever, buthow is this taking away our children’s rights being minors now? I mean, my daughter is turning 7 today, my son is 10. How – I guess that concerns me that we need to keep them safe, but –

The tallest object looks like a flare. You can see the green tanks that depict gas wells, the drilling rig and the impoundment pond with black in it. The sun and sky are sad. Aly’s drawing was previously posted HERE.

Reilly's google

Reilly Ruggiero created this fantastic Google Doodle. Check out the “L.” Half of Reilly’s world looks pretty wonderful but the other half is filled with diesel, drilling waste and scorched earth. I think Reilly was about 9 when she drew this. I posted it on my blog HERE before her parents started replying, “That matter has been resolved,” when asked about their issues with Aruba Petroleum.

children's drawing

During her first “free time” of the second grade, Emma Parr drew a picture of what was happening around her home. She says, “This is the oil rig next to our house. It is messing up our air.” And she tells the workers to clean up their mess.
Fracking is tearing apart families, dividing communities and traumatizing our children.

Villari’s firm “never encouraged the family to agree to it,” he told Yahoo! Shine. “I pushed them quite hard on the issue, said it was unusual, and that we did not believe it was constitutional.” But he said he understood the family’s decision, as the settlement was a “take it or leave it” offer, with the gag order attached. “They had to make a difficult decision at that point in time,” he explained, adding that the Hallowiches were under financial strain and needed the settlement money in order to move. “They made what they felt was the best decision for their family.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter.