For those who want to provide input on an American Samoa marine minerals sale, now is your chance. See the attached Request for Information and Interest.
Archive for the ‘energy policy’ Category
Opportunity to comment on American Samoa offshore marine minerals sale
Posted in deep sea mining, energy policy, tagged American Samoa, BOEM, lease sale, marine minerals, request for information on June 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, James Watt, Hawthorne High, and the OCS oil and gas program
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Congressman George Miller, Hawthorne High, James Watt, Nancy Reagan on June 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Brian Wilson, the music genius who passed away this week, was indirectly connected (sort of) to the OCS oil and gas program.
In 1983, Secretary of the Interior James Watt, whose overzealous approach to offshore oil and gas leasing galvanized opposition, bizarrely banned the Beach Boys from performing at the National Mall 4th of July concert. This stunned Nancy Reagan and almost everyone else in Washington. The Washington Post reported, “a ban on apple pie couldn’t have brought a stronger reaction.”
Congressman George Miller, who later restored the OCS civil penalties program, dropped the names of Beach Boys songs while commenting on the House floor:
‘I was sitting ‘in my room’ ‘all summer long’ saying, “‘Do you remem- ber,’ Mr. Watt, ‘Do you remember’ those ‘Good Vibrations’ from the ‘Fourth of July’ when all we did was ‘dance, dance, dance,’ ‘all summer long’ to the Beach Boys in the ‘spirit of Americas?”” Miller said according to Congressional records. “But ‘help me, Ronald, help, help me Ronald,’ ‘don’t let him run wild.’ And if you cannot do it alone, get help from ‘Barbara Ann.'”
The White House gave Watt a plaster foot with a hole as a symbolic gesture of his mistake. The Beach Boys returned to the National Mall the following, playing in front of a crowd of more than half a million people.
The Beach Boys had another indirect connection to the OCS program in that they attended Hawthorne High with Glenn Shackell, one of our top engineers. Glenn served in Vietnam, studied petroleum engineering at USC, and had an outstanding career in our Pacific Region office. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of oil and gas operations in the Pacific.
Here is a video of Brian Wilson returning to Hawthorne High:
“Almost Heaven” for lateral drilling!
Posted in California, drilling, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Russia, Uncategorized, tagged ADNOC, Expand, horizontal reach wells, lateral drilling, longest well, Platform Heritage, Sacate field, Sakhalin drilling, Santa Ynez Unit, Upper Zakum field, West Virginia on June 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Country roads” take us to Moundsville, West Virginia where new records were set drilling a “postcard well.”
In addition to the records noted in the picture, these impressive company marks were achieved:
- 24-hour footage record: 12,370 feet
- daily footage record: 2,774 feet/day
The record US offshore lateral well is in the Santa Ynez Unit, which has been much discussed on this blog and elsewhere in light of Sable Offshore’s efforts to resume production. In 2010, Exxon drilled a well with a horizontal reach of 6 miles from Platform Heritage into the Sacate field (see the diagrams below).
The world’s longest horizontal reach well appears to be the O-14 well drilled by the Sakhalin-1 Consortium in the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, in April 2015. This well had a horizontal reach of 14,129 meters (46,358 feet).
ADNOC, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, has the world record (2022) for the longest well (50,000′) in the Upper Zakum field. However, no horizontal reach distance is provided, so it is assumed that the Sakhalin well had the longer reach.
Congratulations Walter Cruickshank!
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged BOEM, Cape Cod Baseball League, Minerals Management Service, retirement, US Dept. of the Interior, Walter Cruickshank on June 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Congratulations to Walter Cruickshank on his retirement from the U.S. Dept. of the Interior!
Walter’s policy acumen, in depth understanding of the offshore program, and balanced perspective on energy development earned him the respect of the political leadership from both parties, a rare achievement. As a result, Walter served more time as Director and Deputy Director of both the Minerals Management Service and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management than any other individual. He also served as Acting Secretary of the Interior during the latest transition, a first for a career offshore program employee.
Walter earned a Bachelor of Arts in Geological Sciences from Cornell University and a Doctorate in Mineral Economics from the Pennsylvania State University (We Are!). Although his Federal career spanned more than 40 years, he has rather remarkably retained his intellect and sanity! 😉
Best wishes to Walter going forward. I hope he finds time to root for his Harwich Mariners in the Cape Cod Baseball League!
Consistent with the proud tradition of the OCS program, I am posting the masterpiece “Rig at Sunset” in Walter’s honor.
Rep. Chris Smith: “Radar interference alone enough to pull the plug on‘extremely dangerous’ Empire Wind project”
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged Congressman Chris Smith, Empire Wind, litigation, radar interference on June 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Radar interference is one of the key issues in the law suit against the Empire Wind project. Congressman Smith’s press release (attached) focuses on that issue.
Norway named in Empire Wind complaint! Another first for the US OCS program.
Posted in energy policy, Norway, Offshore Wind, tagged court filing, Empire Wind, Equinor, govt owned company, Norway, OCS Lands Act on June 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Along with other charges, the attached complaint asserts that awarding a wind lease to Norway’s Equinor, violates the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA):
- As an agency or instrumentality of Norway, Equinor cannot receive a lease on the Outer Continental Shelf for offshore wind turbine development or generation of electric power.
While other elements of the complaint appear to have merit, the charge against Norway does not. Here’s why:
- US subsidiaries of foreign companies have long held leases under the OCS Lands Act.
- Equinor US Wind is the US subsidiary holding the wind lease.
- Equinor USA E&P holds interests in OCS oil and gas leases in the Gulf of America. BOEM credits 548,389 barrels of oil production to Equinor for 2023.
- Chinese state-owned CNOOC has been an oil and gas lessee in the Gulf of America.
- US subsidiaries of Shell and BP, both foreign corporations, are the top 2 producers in the Gulf. Although not government owned, there is nothing in OCSLA that distinguishes between US subsidiaries of private and govt owned companies. Woodside (Australia) and Eni (Italy) are also important Gulf producers.
The plaintiffs second count (excerpt below) seems to have more merit. The bulk of the filing pertains to this count.
- BOEM never completed its “necessary review”, see Stop Work Order, April 16, 2025, and, instead, reinstated the Empire Wind work permit on May 19, 2025 without any explanation or finding, stating as follows:
On April 16, 2025, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a Director’s Order to Empire Offshore Wind LLC to halt all ongoing activities related to the Empire Wind Project on the outer continental shelf. That Order is hereby amended to lift the halt on activities during the ongoing review.
The complaint goes on to discuss the reasons why the plaintiffs believe the review was indeed necessary and should have been conducted.
Heerema Thialf is attracting attention!
Posted in decommissioning, energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged Empire Wind, Equinor, heavy lift, Heerema, piles, SSCV, Thiaf, wind turbines on June 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Thialf: a character in Norse mythology who was Thor’s servant.
The Heerema Thialf, a semi-submersible crane vessel (SSCV), is a rather massive presence in coastal waters. The vessel is 661 feet long and 470 feet high, with a lifting capacity of up to 14,200 metric tons, and is the second-largest of its kind.
The Thialf, which set a world record in 2000 by lifting the 11,883-metric-ton Shearwater topside structure in the North Sea, will be driving piles for 54 Vestas 15 MW wind turbines and a substation structure that are part of Equinor’s controversial Empire Wind project.
John Smith tells me that the Thialf is one of the heavy lift vessels being considered for removing California offshore oil and gas platforms. The vessel is too large for the Panama Canal and would have to make the trip around South America or across the Pacific, depending on where it was last working.
The Thialf’s day rate has not been disclosed, but is likely greater than $500k. Equinor claimed to be losing $50 million/week when the project was paused. Thialf costs were presumably a significant chunk of those losses.
New England coalition files suit challenging the New England Wind 1 & 2 approvals
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged Ack for Whales, Aquinnah Wampanoag, BOEM, DOI, Green Oceans, lawsuit, New England Wind, NMFS on May 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »
ACK For Whales, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head / Aquinnah, Green Oceans, a coalition of charter fishing groups and seven individuals filed suit in federal court asserting that the Departments of Interior and Commerce violated the law when they approved the Record of Decision (ROD) for the New England Wind 1 and 2 projects.
Construction has not yet begun on the New England Wind 1 and 2 projects. The leases abut Vineyard Wind’s troubled lease 0501 (see above map), site of last summer’s turbine blade failure.
Per ACK for Whales President Vallorie Oliver:
“In offshore wind project after offshore wind project, from Revolution Wind, Vineyard Wind and New England Wind to the others, the government was so desperate to rush these projects that it cut corners and violated the law,” Oliver said. “The government didn’t care if it trampled on the Wampanoag sacred beliefs and rites, hurt the charter boat, fishing and lobster industries or wiped out the Right whales. The only thing that mattered was to get these environmentally destructive turbines built, costs to the rest of us be damned.”
| Plaintiff: | ACK FOR WHALES, INC., VALLORIE OLIVER, AMY DISIBIO, VERONICA BONNET, DOUGLAS LINDLEY, STEVEN AND SHARYL KOHLER, DANNY PRONK, WILLIAM VANDERHOOP, GREEN OCEANS, RHODE ISLAND PARTY AND CHARTER BOAT ASSOCIATION, CAPE COD CHARTER BOAT ASSOCIATION, INC., CONNECTICUT CHARTER AND PARTY BOAT ASSOCIATION, INC., MONTAUK BOATMEN AND CAPTAINS ASSOCIATION, INC. and WAMPANOAG TRIBE OF GAY HEAD AQUINNAH |
|---|---|
| Defendant: | UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE, BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY MANAGEMENT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, DOUG BURGUM, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Interior, WALTER CRUICKSHANK, in his official capacity as the Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, HOWARD LUTNICK, in his official capacity as the Secretary of Commerce and EUGENIO PIEIRO SOLER, in his official capacity as the Assistant Administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service |
| Case Number: | 1:2025cv01678 |
| Filed: | May 27, 2025 |
| Court: | U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia |
US-Canada: focus on energy alliance, not annexation
Posted in Canada, energy policy, pipelines, tagged Alliance, energy integation, US-Canada on May 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Stop the bluster about annexation of Canada. Almost no one on either side of the border supports this. Focus instead on strengthening strategic alliances – most notably with regard to energy supply.
Both the US and Canada are energy powerhouses. Both countries are also energy underachievers relative to their potential. The more efficiently our pipelines and transmission systems can be integrated, the better that potential can be realized and the more both countries can prosper.
See the attached energy trade map to get a better understanding of our integrated energy economies.
Judge issues preliminary injunction halting Sable’s pipeline work
Posted in California, energy policy, pipelines, Regulation, tagged California Coastal Commission, halt to pipeline work, preliminary injunction, Sable Offshore, Santa Ynez Unit on May 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »
For the reasons set forth herein, the application of the California Coastal Commission for issuance of a preliminary injunction is granted. No bond is required. The Commission shall present a written order for entry by the court.
The roller coaster ride continues. Sable Offshore’s stock price plunged in response to the latest order.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 