Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ Category

What was the source of the November 2023 GoM spill? How was the 1.1 million gallon estimate made?

Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, oil spill response, pipelines, tagged , , , on February 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

After 3 months of investigation, only a small connector leak has been identified in or near the Main Pass Oil Gathering system. According to the Coast Guard, that leak was not the source of the large November spill (pictured). The absence of findings raises many questions:

  • Is the Main Pass Oil Gathering system still being implicated? Surrounding pipelines?
  • Was a vessel or some other source responsible?
  • Were sheen samples fingerprinted and are those results definitive?
  • Given that the source has not been identified, what was the basis for the large (and rather sensational) spill volume estimate? The sheen was not indicative of a spill of that magnitude.
  • How much production has been shut-in since the slick was first identified? November production data indicate a GoM-wide oil production decline of ~80,000 bopd decline from September.

Given the public claims that were made about the size and potential implications of this spill, the authorities need to be more forthcoming regarding their findings to date.

Read Full Post »

BSEE issues second helideck Safety Alert in 30 days as problems persist

Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , , , on February 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Less than a month ago  BSEE issued an alert that addressed chronic and persistent helideck safety issues. This week BSEE again issued an alert (attached) following yet another near-miss. Per BSEE:

After receiving clearance for landing at an offshore helideck, the aircrew noticed upon landing that a section of the helideck’s safety skirting was not properly secured to the support structure and was blowing upward and downward due to the helicopter’s rotor downwash. This created an imminent hazard to safe helicopter operations with potentially catastrophic results.

Of course, we are still waiting for the NTSB report on the tragic helideck incident at the end of 2022 that killed 4 workers.

The latest near-miss is yet another reminder that the muddled regulatory regime for helideck safety needs to be addressed. The most recent Coast Guard – BSEE MOA for fixed platforms only added to helideck regulatory uncertainty by assigning decks and fuel handling to BSEE and railings and perimeter netting to the Coast Guard. What about safety skirting? As is the case with all safety regulations, a holistic, systems based approach to helideck safety oversight is needed.

To their credit, BSEE has been addressing these helideck issues with safety alerts. Since they are bearing the responsibility for these incidents, they should have the unambiguous authority needed to take enforcement actions regardless of which helideck elements are involved.

bsee-safety-alert-481-hazardous-helideck-conditions-results-in-near-miss-incidentDownload

Read Full Post »

5 Year OCS Leasing Plan: Legal appeals filed right on cue!

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , on February 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Expected appeals by API (first attachment) and Earth Justice et al (second attachment) were filed on 12 Feb, 60 days after Secretary Haaland approved the 5 year plan and thus the first day appeals could be filed pursuant to 43 U.S. Code § 1349.

The statute (language below) requires that leasing program appeals be filed in the DC Court of Appeals. API would have undoubtedly rather filed in Louisiana while Earth Justice is likely content with the DC venue.

43 U.S. Code § 1349 (c)(1) Any action of the Secretary to approve a leasing program pursuant to section 1344 of this title shall be subject to judicial review only in the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia.

The filings don’t include any arguments except for API’s general assertion that “the Record of Decision and Approval is arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law.”

Earth Justice presumably filed for defensive reasons given that the 5 year plan has the fewest lease sales in history and would seem to be favorable to their point of view.

API will likely contend that the plan is not balanced as require by the statue:

43 U.S. Code § 1344 (a)(3)The Secretary shall select the timing and location of leasing, to the maximum extent practicable, so as to obtain a proper balance between the potential for environmental damage, the potential for the discovery of oil and gas, and the potential for adverse impact on the coastal zone.

We’ll see how this plays out.

api-offshore-oil-lawsuitDownload
earthjustice-offshore-oil-challengeDownload

Read Full Post »

Daniel Yergin, Vicki Hollub, and Warren Buffett, must not have read the 5 Year OCS Leasing Plan 😉

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , on February 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

The 5 Year Plan tells us that we don’t need more OCS lease sales and that our biggest concern is producing too much oil and gas for too long!

Energy experts like Dan Yergin have a different, and far more credible view. Yergin explains that energy transitions don’t happen on command, noting that the world uses almost three times as much coal today as in the 1960’s when oil finally surpassed coal as the world’s primary energy source.

Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub’s recent remarks should serve as a reality check for the 5 Year Plan authors and their counterparts elsewhere in western governments. More oil and gas exploration and production are needed, not less. Leading Oxy investor Warren Buffet agrees.

Crude reserves are being found and developed at a much slower pace than they’ve been in the past. Specifically, she said the world has only newly identified less than half the amount of crude it’s consumed over the course of the past 10 years. Given the current trends, this means demand will exceed supply before the end of 2025.

Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub per the Motley Fool

Recent trends in the Gulf of Mexico, where Hollub’s Anadarko unit is one of the more active and successful operators, reflect Hollub’s concern. Note below the sharp decline in discoveries, as determined by BOEM, over the past 20 years. Effective development of older discoveries and improved resource recovery practices are sustaining GoM production, but declines are inevitable without consistent leasing and increased exploration.

Read Full Post »

Still waiting ….

Posted in accidents, California, CCS, decommissioning, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, oil spill response, pipelines, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Still waiting for:

Read Full Post »

US OCS compliance data for 2022 and 2023

Posted in Alaska, California, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , , on February 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

The 2023 Safety Honor Roll list will be posted tomorrow.

As background information, below is a summary of compliance data for 2022 and 2023.

The performance of Fieldwood and Cox skewed the 2022 and 2023 data. In 2022, Fieldwood was issued 448 INCs, 26% of the Gulf of Mexico total. In 2023, Cox was by far the leading violator with 718 INCs, 39% of the GoM total (780/43% when Cox affiliates are included). These data point to the importance of considering safety and compliance in approving lease assignments and making supplemental bonding determinations.

20222023
facility inspections33093100
inspection types1085610341
W INCs8091050
CSI INCs530600
FSI INCs376180
total INCs17151830
INCs/facility inspection0.520.59
INCs/inspection type0.160.18
Pacific facility inspections280300
Pacific inspection types802744
Pacific W INCs2211
Pacific CSI INCs1314
Pacific FSI10
Pacific total INCs3625
Pacific INCs/facility inspection0.130.08
Pacific INCS/inspection type0.040.03
Alaska facility inspections85
Alaska inspection types3722
Alaska W INCs01
Alaska CSI INCs01
Alaska FSI INCs00
Alaska INCs total02
Alaska INCs/facility inspection00.4
Alaska INCS/inspection type00.09
INC=incident of noncompliance, W=warning, CSI=component shut-in, FSI=facility shut-in.
No Alaska facilities are located on the Federal OCS. One Alaska facility, Hilcorp’s Northstar island, has wells that are completed on the OCS; hence the limited BSEE inspections.

Read Full Post »

2023 Safety Honor Roll will be posted next week

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , , on February 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Criteria for achieving honor roll status:

  • Must average <0.3 incidents of noncompliance (INCs) per facility-inspection.
  • Must average <0.1 INCs per inspection-type. (Note that each facility-inspection may include multiple types of inspections (e.g. production, pipeline, pollution, Coast Guard, site security, etc). On average, each facility-inspection included 3.3 types of inspections in 2023. Here is a list of the types of inspections that may be performed.
  • Must operate at least 3 production platforms and have drilled at least one well (i.e. you need operational activity to demonstrate compliance and safety achievement).
  • May not have a disqualifying event (e.g. fatal or life-threatening incident, significant fire, major oil spill). Due to the extreme lag in updates to BSEE’s incident tables, district investigations and media reports are used to make this determination.

Read Full Post »

GoM production dipped a bit in November

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , on February 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

With Sept. production revised down slightly, there have been no 2 million bopd months for 4 years (since Nov. 2019).

Read Full Post »

All 36 of Repsol’s carbon disposal bids at Oil and Gas Lease Sale 261 were accepted by BOEM!

Posted in CCS, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2024| Leave a Comment »

At Oil and Gas Lease Sale 261, Repsol was the sole bidder 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 and 259. All 36 of the Repsol bids have now been accepted.

As previously posted here and here, carbon disposal bidding at the last 3 oil and gas lease sales has made a mockery of the leasing process and the regulations that guide it.

Hopefully, the carbon sequestration regulations that are under development will preclude conversion of leases acquired at Sales 257, 259, and 261. At a minimum, these regulations should require a competitive process for converting any oil and gas leases.

Read Full Post »

Private land + technology powers US oil and gas production

Posted in natural gas, Gulf of Mexico, energy policy, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2024| Leave a Comment »

A friend owns land in the Texas Permian. His family gets a nice royalty check every month that has helped them get through some difficult times. Texas Permian production is almost entirely from private land, which is a big part of the success story. Payments to private land owners by responsible producers engender public support, access to resources, and growth in production. Add to that the continuous improvements in horizontal drilling, well stimulation and completion practices, and you have the success story that is the Texas Permian.

Similarly, private and state land plus technology launched the natural gas boom in my native state of Pennsylvania. When I was a student, we looked back at the Titusville/Colonel Drake glory days, and no one dreamed that the state would become a major natural gas exporter. Today, pipeline constraints, particularly in NJ and NY (which has managed to prevent access to the state’s substantial Marcellus and Utica shale resources) are preventing PA from further increasing gas sales.

The offshore lands on the US Outer Continental Shelf are a different story. Unfriendly, bordering on hostile, leasing policy (and not just during the current administration) has been partially overcome by advances in deepwater well and facility design that have lowered costs and increased productivity. However, OCS oil production is a fraction of what it could be.

OCS gas production has fallen dramatically since the turn of the century. Ultradeep (subsurface) gas production was not economically viable and production was fading even before onshore shale gas began to dominate US gas markets. Most of the current OCS gas production is associated with deepwater oil production.

The charts below tell the story.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »