Posted in drilling, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Atlantic drilling, Build Back Better, Joe Manchin, offshore drilling, Pacific drilling on December 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), a critical swing vote, has rejected a provision (in the “Build Back Better Bill”) that would prohibit all future drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico, according to three people familiar with the matter
Washington Post
New oil and gas leasing is unlikely in these areas, but broad permanent bans are never a good idea.
Posted in accidents, California, pipelines, tagged anchor dragging, Beta Unit, Huntington Beach, leak detection, pipeline spill on December 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »
This will be an interesting case given that the root cause of the leak appears to be anchor dragging and the responsible shipping company has yet to be identified. Also, these informed quotes about leak detection from a previous post are highly pertinent:
“My experience suggests this would be a darned hard leak to remotely determine quickly,” said Richard Kuprewicz, a private pipeline accident investigator and consultant. “An opening of this type, on a 17-mile-long (27-kilometer) underwater pipe is very hard to spot by remote indications. These crack-type releases are lower rate and can go for quite a while.”
The type of crack seen in the Coast Guard video is big enough to allow some oil to escape to potentially trigger the low pressure alarm, Kuprewicz said. But because the pipeline was operating under relatively low pressure, the control room operator may have simply dismissed the alarm because the pressure was not very high to begin, he said.
ABC News
Posted in climate, energy policy, gas, Gulf of Mexico, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged CCS, natural gas, nonassociated gas, offshore gas production on December 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Offshore gas production (see chart below) has declined for the past 20 years and now accounts for only 4% of total US gas production, down from 20% in 2005 and 25% in the 1990s. Associated gas production (oil-well gas) has remained relatively constant owing to the strength in deepwater GoM oil production. 73% of 2020 gas production was from deepwater wells, and was mostly oil-well gas. Associated gas production surpassed nonassociated gas production (gas-well gas) in 2016 and the latter has continued to decline.
The case for natural gas has been well documented (see the EQT letter linked below). Recent natural gas advocacy has emphasized the carbon/GHG advantages given that methane (CH4) is essentially a hydrogen transporter that emits far less CO2 than other fossil fuels when burned. However, natural gas’s other important air quality advantages – low NOx. SO2, and particulate emissions – have greater local significance from a human health standpoint. Those who have ridden a bike behind a natural gas powered bus have no doubt experienced the natural gas advantage firsthand. These buses are literally a breath of fresh air!
Other environmental advantages of offshore natural gas, particularly nonassociated gas, receive less attention but are nonetheless significant. Advantages of nonassociated offshore gas include the following:
Low natural gas prices and competition from nimble and efficient shale operations have constrained offshore gas exploration. Ultradeep (subsurface) drilling has shown promise from a gas resource perspective but has proven to be expensive and operationally challenging. Some independent producers are still acquiring gas prone shelf tracts and that needs to be encouraged. Consideration should be given to incentives such as making nonassociated gas production royalty free. That would certainly seem preferable to subsidizing complex, expensive, and uncertain carbon disposal operations on offshore leases.
Posted in climate, energy policy, natural gas, tagged climate, EQT letter, natural gas, polar vortex, surge in gas demand on December 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »
This letter from EQT CEO Toby Rice to Senator Elizabeth Warren summarizes data demonstrating the importance of shale gas in dramatically reducing US GHG emissions. A few excerpts:
In 2019, the United States emitted 970 million metric tons less than in 2005, with 525 million metric tons of that emissions reduction resulting from replacing coal with natural gas in power generation. Said another way: since 2005, in the United States, all emissions reduction efforts combined have had less impact than coal to gas switching alone.
The emissions associated with the production of natural gas are dwarfed by the emissions reduction of switching from the consumption of coal to gas.
Meanwhile, China, which produced only 3% of the world’s natural gas but the majority of the world’s coal, saw its methane emissions increase by an amount roughly equivalent to adding a second Europe to the world.
Letter from EQT to Senator Warren
Meanwhile, natural gas prices have soared to record levels in Europe and a predicted polar vortex may spike US demand. This OilPrice.com chart illustrates the remarkable divergence between US and European gas prices.
Will natural gas demand lead to a resurgence in US offshore gas-well drilling?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Charles E. Smith, NPD, OMAE, PSA Norway on December 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Here is the link. I took the liberty of copying this response from the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway because it succinctly captures Charles’ collaborative spirit and so effectively characterizes his career in the offshore energy world.
We are very sorry to hear of Charles death. The international petroleum industry, and particularly the Petroleum Safety Authority of Norway are in great debt to him for his important work in establishing arenas for interactions and cooperation between regulators. Particularly the international research and development network ICRARD, but also the international regulators forum (IRF). He was a master of building such professional networks, and he always made sure that the learnings were shared with other regulators.
He has for many years been regarded as a friend to the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway, previously the safety division of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. I got to know him as a caring and helping person when I started working for the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. I had the pleasure to meet with him several times during OMAE conferences where he was a key member of the organizing team and regular contributor to the conference.
Øyvind Tuntland and I also had the pleasure to get to know his wife, Elaine. Øyvind remembers kindly staying with Charles and Elaine at their home.
We want to express our deepest condolences to Elaine and the family for their loss. We will miss him deeply as a friend, mentor and a knowledgeable colleague.
Gerhard Ersdal on behalf of the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway, 13 December 2021.
Posted in Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged Charles E. Smith, ICRARD, MMS, Newfoundland, ohmsett, OMAE, OTRC, USGS on December 12, 2021| 1 Comment »
I’m very sad to report the passing of a leading offshore safety researcher and long-time colleague, Dr. Charles Smith. Charles was a pioneering structural engineer who joined the US Geological Survey’s Conservation Division (then the offshore safety regulator) in ~1977 to establish the Technology Assessment and Research (TAR) Program. With the thinnest of budgets, Charles formed partnerships that addressed the gamut of offshore safety issues. Some of his accomplishments:
Charles was the only offshore regulatory engineer to be selected as one of 10 finalists for the prestigious NSPE Federal Engineer of the Year award. (Keep in mind that the US government employs more than 130,000 engineers.) In 2009, the year of his retirement from Minerals Management Service, he was inducted into the Offshore Energy Center’s Hall of Fame (Galveston, TX) as as a Technology Pioneer for Health, Safety, and the Environment.
After retirement Charles moved to Newfoundland and continued working on offshore safety issues with Memorial University, Canadian regulators, and industry representatives. He and his wife Elaine built a lovely home overlooking the water in Bay Roberts. He was proud to be a citizen of both the US and Canada, and both countries were beneficiaries of his long and enormously successful career. Here is his obituary.
Posted in Health, Regulation, tagged OSHA, vaccine standard on December 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
They extended the comment period. (Only an old regulator would find this amusing. Love OSHA’s panache 😃)
The ETS on Vaccination and Testing was published in the Federal Register on November 5, 2021. The ETS also acts as a proposal for a permanent standard and OSHA has decided to extend the comment period for that rule by 45 days. Written comments on any aspect of the ETS must now be submitted by January 19, 2022
OSHA
Posted in accidents, California, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, tagged Amplify, Beta Unit, Huntington Beach, NTSB, pipeline spill, US Coast Guard on December 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »
According to the Coast Guard, investigators determined the ship “was involved in an anchor dragging incident on Jan. 25, 2021 during a heavy weather event that impacted the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach.” The anchor- dragging occurred “in close proximity” to an underwater pipeline later determined to be the source of the October leak that spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean, forcing the closure of beaches and harbors across Orange County.
CBS-LA
The hearings and the liability battles that follow will be most interesting. Those lined up to sue the pipeline operator (Amplify), such as this Huntington Beach disc jockey, may have difficulties.
Posted in Offshore Energy - General, tagged Argos, bp, deepwater production, Gulf of Mexico, Mad Dog 2 on December 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Per Offshore-Energy.biz, BP’s semi-submersible Argos production platform has arrived on location in the Gulf of Mexico. The floating platform will operate in 4500′ of water as part of BP’s Mad Dog 2 project. Production, which is expected to reach 140,000 boe/d, should begin in the 2nd quarter of 2022.
Per BOEM’s platform data base, this will be the 58th surface production facility in the deepwater (>1000′) GoM and the first such facility installed since Shell’s Appomattox in June, 2018. These platforms account for more than 90% of US offshore oil production.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 