Coast Guard photo. Thanks to Lars Herbst for bringing this incident to my attention.
In what the Coast Guard is describing as an “uncontrolled discharge” (euphemism for blowout), an 82-year-old oil well has been spewing oil, gas, and water into the coastal marshes of southern Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, for more than a week.
In hopes of future production, prior and current owners had elected not to permanently plug the well, apparently with the State’s acquiescence.
The Coast Guard has taken over the response and has accessed the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
We don’t need relaxed decommissioning and financial assurance requirements. We need a cooperative Federal, State, and industry effort to ensure that wells are plugged in a timely manner and that financial assurance is provided to protect the public interest.
Those who are concerned about minimizing the Federal government’s decommissioning risk exposure should closely monitor this process. Some companies and their political allies have sought to minimize the financial risks associated with plugging wells and removing facilities. As a result, it has been necessary to defend BOEM from unwarranted commentary about decommissioning issues and the financial assurance rule. Stay tuned!
“Despite our previously unified stance, some Members of our conference now feel compelled to defend wind and biofuel credits, advocate for carbon capture and hydrogen subsidies, or protect solar and electric vehicle giveaways. Keeping even one of these subsidies opens the door to retaining all eight. How do we retain some of these credits and not operate in hypocrisy?The longstanding Republican position has been to allow the market to determine energy production. If every faction continues to defend their favored subsidies, we risk preserving the entire IRA because no clearly defined principle will dictate what is kept and what is culled.“
Farther in the past, there were noteworthy failures (below) like Mobil’s acquisition of Montgomery Ward, Exxon’s investment in Reliance Electric, and Gulf’s real estate ventures.
Mobil – Montgomery WardExxon – Reliance ElectricGulf Land – Reston
Finally, don’t expect the carbon sequestration boom that some are forecasting. As wind investors have discovered, industries dependent on mandates and subsidies are risky.
Not much unites climate activists and skeptics, but they are largely aligned in their opposition to carbon sequestration (euphemism for disposal), as are fiscal conservatives. The word chutzpah comes to mind when companies seek public funds to dispose of emissions associated with the combustion of their products.
199 oil and gas leases were wrongfully acquired at Sales 257, 259, and 261 with the intent of developing these leases for carbon disposal purposes. Repsol was the sole bidder at Sale 261 for 36 nearshore Texas tracts in the Mustang Island and Matagorda Island areas (red blocks at the western end of the map above). Exxon acquired 163 nearshore Texas tracts (blue in map above) at Sales 257 (94) and 259 (69).
Die Dunkelflaute or dark lulls have drawn attention to the need for dispatchable power (typically from gas turbines or coal-fired power plants) when the weather isn’t cooperating.
The massive power outage in Spain and Portugal on Monday may be the result of the opposite challenge – a surge in solar power supply greatly exceeding demand (dark line in chart below).
Note that no extreme weather events were reported in Spain on April 28, 2025. The Portuguese grid operator mentioned “extreme temperature variations” in Spain’s interior, possibly causing grid oscillations, but no storms or heatwaves were noted. Weather was typical for April, with mild temperatures (8-19°C) and some rain.
Meanwhile, the political focus in the US (chart below), and perhaps more so in Europe, had been on “clean” rather than reliable power.
Bottom line: Over-reliance on highly variable wind and solar power challenges grid management, putting supply reliability at risk.
… and shared a mineral water toast! 😉 (Weak joke, but at least it’s original and topical!)
NOAA and TMC, a Canadian company, are working together to bypass the stifling UN deep sea minerals bureaucracy.
NOAA raises a glass: Yesterday, President Trump signed an Executive Order establishing a framework for American companies to identify and retrieve offshore critical minerals and resources. The Executive Order prioritizes U.S. leadership in seabed mapping and mineral exploration, ensuring reliable access to critical minerals like manganese, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements.
In support of the Executive Order, NOAA is committed to an expeditious review of applications for exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits. The agency will provide the necessary resources for license and permit reviews to ensure that those reviews go forward without undue delays.
TMC is positioned to play a central role in supporting an American industrial ecosystem underpinned by deep-seabed minerals, and poised to mobilize tens of billions in private investment in the U.S. across shipbuilding, ports, mineral processing, and advanced manufacturing
The Company through its U.S. subsidiary expects to file license and permit applications under the U.S. Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA) in the second quarter of 2025
China boos: “The US authorization… violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday.
TMC and other companies like Impossible Metals (see below) have had enough of the endless delays at the United Nations’ International Seabed Authority, which is still developing regulations. Mining companies and others have spent years gathering data and providing input.
Meanwhile in US waters:
San Jose, CA – Impossible Metals, a pioneering US-based deep-sea mining company, has submitted a request to commence a leasing process for exploration and potential mining of critical minerals in the deep sea off the coast of American Samoa. Impossible Metals is the first company to request a lease of critical minerals under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, which is regulated by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Impossible Metals has developed the only autonomous underwater robot (AUV) for selective harvesting. The novel underwater robot uses advanced robotics, AI, and a buoyancy engine to hover above the seabed, accurately identifying and avoiding nodules with visible life while minimizing disruption to the habitat and native biodiversity. This method will have the lowest environmental impact and cost among land and deep-sea mining approaches, setting a new standard for responsible resource collection.
BSEE’s decision to revise downhole commingling policy by increasing the allowable pressure differential between reservoirs is sound and supported by an impressive University of Texas (UT) Petroleum Engineering study. Although the announcement hype is a bit much, this is the way regulation is supposed to work.
The main benefit of commingling (vs. sequential production) is the accelerated return on investment, which is fine as long as other risks are not introduced and ultimate oil recovery is not sacrificed. The UT study of Paleogene (Wilcox) reservoirs found that downhole commingling actually maximizes per-well oil production compared to sequential schemes. Over 30 and 50 years, commingling yields 61% and 21% more oil respectively.
The UT study analyzed 3 cases with 19 variables (Table 2 in their report). The reservoir pressure differentials were 500, 1000, and 1500 psi. Interestingly, pressure differential had essentially no impact on cumulative production in either the commingled or sequential scenarios.
Figure 13. Cumulative production over 50 years for commingled (left) and sequential (right) production scheme. The most significant variables are shown in the first four pairs of plots. The last pair of plots shows the least important parameter which is pressure difference between reservoir units.
Also note that (fig. 13):
As the upper reservoir thickness increases to 1000 ft (high case), total production increases by 41% for the commingled production scheme and 26% for the sequential production scheme.
The second most important field feature is upper reservoir facies proportion for both production schemes. A higher sand proportion in the reservoir results in higher production.
Although combustion of natural gas emits 30% and 45% less CO2 than oil and coal respectively, the CO2 emissions are still significant. As a result, those who focus solely on greenhouse gases and ignore all other impacts (e.g. other air pollutants like NOx, SO2, and particulates, land use and space preemption, visual effects, and wildlife risks), want to limit the production and use of gas. However, whether or not fossil fuel consumption is significantly affecting the climate, the use for natural gas will be economically and environmentally imperative for the foreseeable future.
Not all natural gas production is equal from an environmental standpoint. Because this is an offshore energy blog, I draw your attention to the unique advantages of offshore gas production: minimal visual impact, bird friendly (rigs-to-roosts!), no risks to freshwater aquifers, and few land use issues.
Currently, most offshore gas production is in the form of oil-well gas (AKA associated or casing head gas). Offshore gas production is thus being primarily driven by oil demand, and is an added benefit from deepwater oil development.
Offshore gas-well or non-associated gas is largely the domain of independent operators producing in the shallower waters of the continental shelf. Non-associated gas has an added benefit in that there is little or no spill risk (depending on how dry the gas is). Shelf gas platforms also provide ecosystem benefits through their reef effect (rigs-to-reefs). Sustaining this non-associated gas production is therefore desirable from both energy and environmental standpoints.
Scotland Against Spin (SAS) continues to provide an important public service by compiling wind turbine incident data from press reports and official releases. Their updated table includes 327 pages of incidents.
Oregon Live found out about the state of industry and government data on wind turbine incidents while investigating a turbine blade failure in Biglow Canyon, Oregon:
“Accident and safety data is hard to come by for the wind industry.”
“There is no national database of incidents. Owners don’t publicize them. Vendors are reluctant to discuss it. And reporting rules vary by state, or even by county.”
Thankfully, SAS diligently gathers publicly available reports and updates their tables in a timely manner. Their data indicate that the number of wind turbine incidents has risen sharply in recent years (see chart below). So, of course, has the number of turbines.
The World Wind Energy Assoc. reports an increase of ~60% in wind turbine capacity between 2019 and 2023. This capacity increase would only partially account for the recent tripling in annual incidents reported by SAS, and SAS believes their list is merely the “tip of the iceberg.”
A high priority for wind industry regulators in the US and internationally should be establishing a consistent wind energy incident reporting regime and making the data available to the public in a timely and organized manner.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 