Category Archives: offshore oil

energy policy, fracking, offshore oil, tar sands

Southern Studies: The growing fight against oil and gas exploration off the NC coast

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http://www.southernstudies.org/2014/03/the-growing-fight-against-oil-and-gas-exploration-.html

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) recently took time away from dealing with a water contamination disaster caused by dirty coal power to make the case for opening his state up to yet another player in the dirty energy industry.

Last Monday, while his administration continued to grapple with Duke Energy’s massive coal ash spill into the Dan River, McCrory joined fellow governors Terry McAuliffe (D) of Virginia, Phil Bryant (R) of Mississippi and Robert Bentley (R) of Alabama at a meeting in Washington with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to make the case for opening up their coasts to offshore drilling for oil and gas.

Those state leaders are members of the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition (OCSGC), a group promoting expanded offshore drilling that’s chaired by McCrory. Its other members are Republican Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, and Sean Parnell of Alaska.

McCrory and his OCSGC colleagues asked Jewell to support seismic testing for oil and gas reserves off the Atlantic Coast, which is currently protected by a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling. They got their answer three days later, when the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) published an environmental analysis that endorsed a plan for seismic exploration in Atlantic waters.

Jewell — the former CEO of outdoor goods company REI who started her career as an engineer for what was then the Mobil oil company — is expected to formally approve the testing plan next month, McClatchyDC reports. BOEM is accepting comments on the plan here until April 7.

McCrory cheered BOEM’s announcement. “This decision is the right step toward more jobs for North Carolina, particularly in our rural areas near the coast,” he said in a statement.

The first step toward offshore drilling, seismic testing involves using air guns to shoot compacted air to the ocean floor, creating sound waves used to map undersea oil and gas reserves. But there are serious environmental and economic concerns about the air gun blasts, which are thousands of times more intense than the roar of a jet engine and are expected to cause injuries to marine life. Fisherfolk in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago reported a dramatic drop in catches following seismic testing in their waters.

But while seismic testing in the Atlantic appears to be winning support from federal officials, who say the current plan would “minimize impacts to marine life,” McCrory is meeting opposition in North Carolina coastal communities — including from members of his own party.

The town of Carolina Beach, N.C. held a special meeting on Friday, Feb. 28 — the day after BOEM approved seismic testing — where council members unanimously passed a resolution opposing seismic testing off the state’s coast. Of the council’s five members, four are Republicans and one is a Democrat.

“The town of Carolina Beach does not support the current proposals,” council member Steve Shuttleworth, a Republican, told The Star-News newspaper. “Particularly the frequency, the volume and the areas for seismic testing, as well as the potential threat to marine life.”

The resolution addresses potential harm to recreational and commercial fishing as well as tourism. Located about 15 miles south of the historic port city of Wilmington, N.C., Carolina Beach is a tourist attraction, with one of the East Coast’s last remaining beachside boardwalks, numerous charter fishing boat businesses, and a state park for fishing, camping and hiking.

Just three miles down the coast from Carolina Beach is the town of Kure Beach, N.C., where Mayor Dean Lambeth’s (R) recent decision to sign onto a letter endorsing seismic testing triggered a backlash from his constituents. Hundreds of them packed a January council meeting to protest the mayor’s action, pounding on the walls and booing Lambeth. The controversial letter had been written by America’s Energy Forum, a project of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s largest trade association.
“…[W]e really weren’t represented by our mayor in this decision,” Kure Beach resident Joanne Durham said at the meeting. The council has not taken a formal position on seismic testing.

Carolina Beach and Kure Beach residents are not alone in their opposition to seismic testing: The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and about 50 members of the U.S. House and Senate have also taken stances against it, according to a tally by the environmental advocacy group Oceana, which also opposes the practice.

And last month, 102 marine scientists and conservation biologists wrote a letter to President Obama opposing finalizing the environmental impact statement on seismic testing until the National Marine Fisheries completes its new Marine Mammal Acoustic Guidelines lest the statement be “scientifically deficient and quickly outdated.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, marine mammals, national ocean politics, natural resource management, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Miami Herald: Feds support air gun blasts to find Atlantic oil, gas

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http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/27/3963572/feds-support-air-gun-blasts-to.html

Thursday, 2/27/14whale

A study of what the controversial seismic tests would do to whales, dolphins and fish is on track for release at the end of February, an Interior Department official told lawmakers on Friday. Pictured is a North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES / NOAA/MCT

BY SEAN COCKERHAM
MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON — The Interior Department is endorsing seismic exploration for oil and gas in Atlantic waters, a crucial move toward starting drilling off the Carolinas, Virginia and possibly down to Florida.

The department released its final review Thursday, favoring a plan to allow the intense underwater seismic air gun blasts that environmentalists and some members of Congress say threatens the survival of whales and dolphins.

The oil industry wants to use the air guns to find out how much oil and gas lies along the U.S. Atlantic seabed. Federal estimates of a relatively modest 3.3 billion barrels of oil date from the 1970s and 1980s and are considered too low.

“The currently available seismic information from this area is decades old and was developed using technologies that are obsolete,” said Tommy Beaudreau, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The federal government wants to use the information to decide whether to open up the mid- and south Atlantic to oil and gas drilling for the first time in decades. President Barack Obama had planned to start allowing drilling at least off the coast of Virginia, but he postponed consideration of the idea after the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Interior Department’s plan is to start allowing underwater seismic air gun tests in an area from Delaware to Florida’s Cape Canaveral, though most of the push for offshore drilling involves the waters off the Carolinas and Virginia.

The seismic tests involve vessels towing an array of air guns that blast compressed air underwater, sending intense sound waves to the bottom of the ocean. The booms are repeated every 10 seconds or so for days or weeks.

The echoes are used to map the locations of subsea oil and gas deposits.

The Interior Department received more than 55,000 public comments on the proposal. Environmental groups warn that the blasts make whales and dolphins deaf, preventing them from feeding, mating and communicating. More than 50 members of Congress, including a few Republicans, have sent letters to the president opposing the seismic air gun tests and saying that up to 138,500 marine mammals could be injured by them.

Interior Department officials said their plan protected the endangered North Atlantic right whale by closing areas along the whales’ main migratory route to the air gun testing. Beaudreau said the tests would be monitored closely.

“We’re really going to require and demand a high level of environmental performance,” he said.

The environmental group Oceana said the protected area was too small and the endangered whales would suffer from the “dynamite-like blasts.”

“They are like the American bison of the ocean. They deserve protection. There are only 500 of them left,” said Matthew Huelsenbeck, a marine scientist for Oceana.

Oceana last week spearheaded a letter from more than 100 marine scientists and conservation biologists that urges the Obama administration not to approve the seismic tests until the National Marine Fisheries Services releases upcoming new acoustic guidelines for marine mammals.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is expected to give the final approval to the seismic testing plan in April. At that point the government would start reviewing the nine applications from companies that want to conduct the testing and decide whether their specific proposals should go forward.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash.,, said the seismic testing plan was a major milestone for efforts to open the Atlantic to oil and gas drilling.
“While it has taken far too long, this step today will help put America on a path to open new areas to more American energy production,” Hastings said.

The Obama administration is weighing whether to include mid- and south Atlantic oil and gas drilling in the next federal offshore leasing plan, which runs from 2017 through 2022.
The National Ocean Industries Association, a group that’s lobbying for offshore drilling,
said the Interior Department’s approval of seismic testing appeared to be a huge step. But the group said it needed to review the plan to make sure its restrictions didn’t make testing unworkable.

The industry group said seismic testing had been used for decades in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere in the world to make informed decisions about where to drill for oil.

There’s been controversy along the Gulf of Mexico, though, where the industry, environmental groups and government agencies settled a lawsuit last summer by putting some areas off limits to air gun testing for 30 months while environmental studies are conducted.

Email: scockerham@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @seancockerham

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/27/3963572/feds-support-air-gun-blasts-to.html#storylink=cpy

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, natural resource management, offshore oil

UPI.com: Report: ‘Perfect storm’ of oil risks in U.S. arctic waters

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http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2014/02/27/Report-Perfect-storm-of-oil-risks-in-US-arctic-waters/UPI-42481393502191/#ixzz2uXBx1UCL

Feb. 27, 2014 at 6:56 AM |

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) — With Shell uncertain about its future in U.S. arctic waters, a consortium of environmental advocacy groups said the region presents a “perfect storm of risks.”

Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said in January a series of mishaps in its drilling campaign off the Alaskan coast meant his company lacked a “clear path forward” in the arctic. “I am not prepared to commit further resources for drilling in Alaska in 2014,” he said.

Oil Change International, Greenpeace, Oceana, Platform, Pacific Environment and ShareAction issued a 36-page report Wednesday saying the long-term capital investments needed and the “uniquely challenging” arctic environment suggested the region may be out of reach.

“The U.S. Arctic Ocean presents almost a perfect storm of risks,” their report stated. Shell’s arctic drill ship Kulluk ran aground off the Alaskan coast while being towed to Seattle in December 2012. The grounding followed a 2012 exploration season in the arctic waters of Alaska that was complicated by equipment failures.

A January decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has headquarters in San Francisco, against environmental aspects tied to Shell’s work in Alaska could delay the company’s plans “by several years,” the environmental groups say.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

BP Spill, fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, offshore oil

Times-Picayune: BP begins oil production at major Gulf of Mexico deepwater hub

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http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2014/02/bp_begins_oil_production_at_ma.html

big rig
BP’s Na Kika offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico in November 2013. The company said it started new oil production at the platform on Feb. 19, 2014. (BP p.l.c.)

By Jennifer Larino, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on February 25, 2014 at 4:31 PM, updated February 25, 2014 at 4:32 PM

BP has started production at a key offshore oil and gas hub, its third major deepwater drilling project to begin flowing oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico this year, the company said this week.

The project falls in line with the oil giant’s broader strategy to ramp up high-margin oil and gas production at four of its platforms in the region.

The recent activity centers on BP’s Na Kika field and production platform located about 140 miles southeast of New Orleans, in which BP owns a 50 percent interest. Royal Dutch Shell owns the remaining stake.

This is the third and latest phase of development at the Na Kika field, which started producing oil in 2003. The Na Kika platform sits in more than 6,000 feet of water.

BP has grown its operations there in recent months, drilling two new wells and building a system of subsea pipe and other equipment needed to tie the new wells back to the Na Kika platform.

BP brought the first oil well under the latest development phase into production on Feb. 19. A second well is expected to start up in the second quarter.

The company is also installing new equipment to boost production at an existing well at the site.

The investment could boost Na Kika’s daily production from up to 130,000 barrels of oil equivalent to up to 170,000 barrels.

The Na Kika project is among a number of projects expected to come online in the Gulf in coming years, potentially pushing the area to record high oil production by 2016.
BP has started up two other major deepwater projects so far this year, its Chirag oil project in the Caspian Sea and the Mars B project also in the Gulf of Mexico.

Shell, which operates Mars B, started production at the field’s Olympus platform, a move that is expected to boost production by 100,000 barrels per day, according to a report by FuelFix this month. BP owns a 28.5 percent working interest in the project.

BP plans to invest about $4 billion annually in the Gulf over the next decade, with much of the spending centering on four of the platforms it operates in the area – Thunder Horse, Na Kika, Atlantis and Mad Dog.

New leasing could also factor into the company’s spending plans.

BP America Inc. CEO John Minge, in a speech to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association in New Orleans on Feb. 19, said that the company was nearing an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice that would again allow the company to bid on federal contracts, according to The Associated Press.

The suspension was put in place in November 2012 after BP pleaded guilty to criminal counts tied to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, which killed 11 men and unleashed the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

It’s still unclear whether the parties will reach an agreement prior to federal lease sales in the central and eastern Gulf planned for March 19 in New Orleans.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, offshore oil

Washington Post: McAuliffe will join coalition pushing for off-shore drilling

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/02/24/mcauliffe-will-join-coalition-pushing-for-off-shore-drilling/

BY REID WILSON

February 24 at 10:56 am

www.washingtonpos/2662DBD5.jpg
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.) (Mike Theiler/Reuters)
Governors from Mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast states, including Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe (D), urged Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Monday to finalize rules that will eventually allow dramatically expanded offshore oil and gas drilling, bringing new industry – and millions in new tax revenue – to some states that have been shut out of the U.S. energy boom.

Jewell and senior Interior Department officials met with McAuliffe, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (D), Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) on Monday. The Interior Department is expected to release a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement within days that would allow oil and gas companies to begin surveying the outer continental shelf for natural resources.

Once the PEIS is issued, seismic surveys for oil and gas deposits could begin within a matter of months.

“We want to find out exactly what’s out there, but we also want to do it in an environmentally sound way,” McCrory said in an interview. He called the meeting “very positive.”

McCrory heads the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, a group of mostly Republican governors pushing to expand offshore oil drilling. McAuliffe told The Washington Post he would join the coalition – the first Democrat to do so – as he sped out of the meeting Monday.

Expanding offshore oil and gas production could lead to “tens of millions” of dollars in royalties on both leasing agreements and production for states like North Carolina and Virginia, McCrory said. McAuliffe made a point to ask Jewell how much money Virginia could expect from the new drilling operations.

The exact amount of revenue that would fall to the states remains up in the air, subject to revenue-sharing agreements to be worked out between the states and the federal government.

Jewell told governors that the revenue-sharing part of any new production would be out of her hands. She urged the governors to “make the case legislatively,” according to one person in the meeting.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has proposed legislation that would codify a revenue-sharing agreement. McCrory said coastal states are looking to revenue-sharing agreements between the federal government and inland states as models.

The new drilling could also mean thousands of new jobs for rural coastal communities. “There’s a potential to bring new industry closer in to our coast that is desperately needed,” McCrory said.

But before drilling or exploration can commence, states will have to consider objections from environmentalists, who are concerned about the impact on wildlife. The states will also be required to work with the U.S. military, which conducts training operations and manages shipping lanes near areas that could be opened to drilling.

As new technology has led to an energy production boom in states like North Dakota and Texas, coastal states that need federal permission to expand offshore drilling have lagged. Virginia produced 146 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2012, according to the Department of Energy, and no oil. North Carolina, too, has yet to begin setting rules for hydraulic fracturing and other new techniques that could expand oil drilling.

The Obama administration has been criticized for being slow to open new territory to oil and gas exploration, but the amount of energy produced in the United States has risen to record levels in recent years. Jewell, a former executive at REI and an avid environmentalist, assured the governors that the administration wouldn’t block future development.

“We’re not here to get in the way of energy development,” Jewell said, according to the person present in the meeting.

The governors also urged Jewell to expand offshore wind power, and to set concrete rules for producers who want to expand drilling operations in the Arctic. Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R), who faces reelection this year, sent a representative from his office to the meeting.

Special thanks to Richard Charter