From 1997 to 2007, Aera operated the Beta Unit offshore Huntington Beach. Since selling those facilities, all Aera operations have been conducted onshore, primarily in Kern County, a historically important California oil production area. Aera will continue to operate these onshore properties for IKAV, which looks like an interesting company.
In addition to the penalty and reimbursement elements of the plea agreement, there are two Amplify commitments that may be of particular interest to BOE readers:
New leak detection system for the pipeline: More information on the leak detection improvements for this low pressure oil pipeline would be helpful.
Notification to regulators of all leak detection alarms:
Which regulators? DOT? BSEE? State? All?
Real time reporting or periodic compilations? With real time reporting for every alarm, the distinction between the pipeline operator and regulator(s) would be blurred and new organizational and competence risks would be added. The probability of communications errors and delayed decisions would increase, and the operator would no longer be accountable for bad decisions.
Also, given that the investigating agencies have still not issued their report on the October 2021 spill and no action has yet been taken against the shipping companies that caused the pipeline rupture, the congratulatory Coast Guard, EPA, FBI, and DOT quotes in the announcement seem rather premature and self-serving.
Martyn Willsher, Amplify’s President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are pleased to have reached an agreement in principle regarding the civil litigation resulting from the Southern California Pipeline Incident last October. Although we are unable to provide additional detail at this time, we negotiated in good faith and believe we have come to a reasonable and fair resolution. We will continue to vigorously pursue our substantial claims for damages against the ships that struck our pipeline, and the Marine Exchange of Southern California that failed to notify us of the anchor strikes.”
This Montecito Journal article explains the ecological importance of California offshore platforms and summarizes the challenging regulatory issues associated with their decommissioning.
According to a paper published in 2014 by marine ecologist Dr. Jeremy Claisse of Cal Poly Pomona, the oil and gas platforms off the coast of California are the most productive marine habitats per unit area in the world. “Even the least productive platform was more productive than Chesapeake Bay or a coral reef in Moorea,” said Dr. Love. (Milt Love, UCSB biologist)
The only current Alaskan OCS production is from Northstar, a joint State-Federal Unit in the Beaufort Sea. The production island is in State waters, but 7 of the wells produce from the Federal sector. The field was originally developed by bp, but Hilcorp is the current operator. To date, BSEE has conducted 5 inspections of the facility in 2022, and no incidents of noncompliance (INCs) were identified.
Per BOEM records, 4 companies operate Pacific (California) OCS facilities that are currently producing. Three of those operators have superior 2022 inspection records. No INCs were issued to either Exxon (11 Santa Ynez Unit inspections) or Freeport-McMoRan (24 Platform Irene inspections). Only 2 warning INCs were issued during 12 inspections of Beta Operating Co. platforms Ellen, Elly, and Eureka in the Beta Unit offshore Long Beach.
One of our very savvy BOE readers shared data (attached) from Oil in the Sea III, a National Academies report that is the best source of information on oil inputs into US waters. The data for Southern California are presented below in 3 charts. The first chart shows that natural seeps are overwhelmingly the leading offshore source of oil entering SoCal waters, with offshore platforms and pipelines accounting for <0.5% of the oil.
The second and third charts exclude natural seepage and compare the coastal and offshore oil inputs from the other sources. When land based transportation inputs are included (chart 2), platforms and pipelines (combined) account for 5.3% of the oil.
Excluding natural seepage and land based transportation inputs (chart 3), recreation vessels are by far the leading source of oil (47.5%), with platforms and pipelines (combined) accounting for less than half that volume (22.2%).
These data add important perspective, but are not intended to discount platform and pipeline spills. These spills can have significant localized impacts, and every effort must be made to prevent their occurrence.
“While attending USC, Jim met his future wife and love of his life, Sarah Ann Mason, a fellow geology student. It was crystal clear from the moment he met her in the Mineralogy lab, Sarah was a gem and despite all his faults he wouldn’t take her for granite.“
After high school, Jim worked as a cook on the Glomar Challenger scientific drilling vessel, which no doubt inspired him to study geology. As part of the Deep Sea Drilling Program, the Challenger recovered cores that provided conclusive evidence of plate tectonics, which until that time was just a theory. From 1968 to 1983, the Challenger recovered over 19,000 cores in water depths up to 7044 m!
Jim became a leading expert on oil and gas resources offshore California, which were once (and still should be) considered nationally important. Much respect for his many contributions to our understanding of Pacific geology!
There have been 24 well stimulation treatments (21 of which involved hydraulic fracturing) on the OCS offshore California between 1982 and 2014, and these were conducted on four of the 23 platforms. Reservoirs on the OCS off Southern California tend to be much more permeable than onshore reservoirs, and are already highly naturally fractured. Therefore, little permeability enhancement has been required for their development. As described in the scenario evaluated in the EA, the future use of Well Stimulation Treatments is expected to continue to be occasional rather than essential to hydrocarbon production from these platforms.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 