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Archive for the ‘Offshore Energy – General’ Category

More good news on the Huntington Beach pipeline spill

Posted in accidents, California, Offshore Energy - General, oil, pipelines, tagged , , , on October 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Due to water currents and a robust emergency clean-up effort, local beaches and ocean were re-opened on Oct. 11. By mid October, walking along the wide, sandy beaches there’s no sign of the spill as dolphins and surfers share the waves against a backdrop of cargo ships, oil rigs and the soft silhouette of Catalina Island.

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Further confirmation of the lower spill volume:

“Right now, there’s high confidence that the spill was approximately 24,696 gallons. The exact number won’t be able to be verified until the investigation has been completed. But there’s high confidence in that number,” Shaye said.

LCDR Shaye to the Sentinel

“Our world environment is very resilient, which is a positive thing,” Shaye said. “As far as the birds and wildlife; there have been some deaths, as happens in this kind of situation. But quite a few have been rehabilitated and released back into their environment.

LCDR Shaye to the Sentinel

Kudos to the responders. The training and response exercises worked!

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COP26 bans oil industry. Is this helpful?

Posted in conferences, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, UK, Wind Energy, tagged , , , on October 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Greenpeace climate activists stage a protest at a Shell refinery in Rotterdam, Netherlands
EuroNewa.green

Oil firms have been banned from taking an active role in the upcoming COP26 summit.

The news is a seismic victory for climate activists.

It stops Big Oil companies from sponsoring the conference and steering the narrative away from their culpability in the climate crisis.

Euronews.green

Comments:

  • This decision is more about exercising political power than advancing our energy future, which is dependent on collaboration among all sectors of the energy industry.
  • Oil and gas producers are “banned,” but major energy consumers are welcome to support the conference.
  • The 3 oil companies mentioned in the article are major investors in offshore wind and other renewable energy projects. These companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase US offshore wind leases and will spend much more on the projects that follow. They are also major investors in low carbon intensity offshore oil and gas production.
  • Does the US government, which (at taxpayers expense) is sending a very large delegation to COP26, support this type of discriminatory behavior toward major contributors to our economy?
  • While the delegates are attending the conference, the folks at home are seething about gasoline prices and inflation.

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Calls for the cancellation of Pacific OCS leases

Posted in accidents, California, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, tagged , , , on October 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste - FocusCFO

A group of environmental organizations demanded Wednesday that the Biden administration suspend and cancel oil and gas leases in federal waters off the California coast after a recent crude oil spill.

NBC LA

While not the disaster that some had predicted, this spill is another setback for California offshore production. However, cancellation of the remaining producing leases would be a very difficult and costly proposition for the Federal government. At this time, the Beta Unit operator appears to be minimally responsible for the spill, so what would be the basis for cancelling those leases? Cancelling other producible leases would be even more problematic.

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Carbon intensity workshop recommended

Posted in conferences, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , on October 21, 2021| Leave a Comment »

With regard to air emissions, the advantages of deepwater Gulf of Mexico production are rather obvious:

  • High production rates per well
  • Few surface facilities (57 deepwater platforms, 3% of GoM total, produce 90+% of oil)
  • Modern gas turbines for power generation
  • Tightly enforced restrictions on flaring and venting
  • Better control of fugitive emissions
  • Distant from shore (not a factor for GHG effects)

Wood Mackenzie, NOIA, and others contend that restrictions on GoM leasing are contrary to carbon reduction goals.

An important and unintended consequence of enacting more restrictive policies such as a lease ban or increase in royalty rate in the Gulf of Mexico is that it could give rise to carbon leakage to countries that export crude to US.

Wood Mackenzie
Chart: Emissions intensity for US crude importers. US Gulf of Mexico deepwater emissions are less intensive than all but one importer.

In light of the policy implications of GHG emissions, a Carbon Intensity Workshop is highly recommended. The estimates generated by Wood Mackenzie, Rystad, and others need to be explored in depth. Is data quality an issue? How are the data verified? Is there regulator or third party oversight? What are the assumptions behind the estimates? Also, for the purposes of US policy decisions, product transportation emissions should certainly be included. A barrel produced in the Middle East is not the same as a barrel produced in the GoM.

Looking at the chart above, I have immediate questions about the drilling emissions (blue). What wells are included? What about workovers and other well operations? I’m surprised that the deepwater GoM drilling emissions are so high relative to the other regions. While dynamically positioned MODUs have high fuel consumption rates, deepwater wells are few in number relative to shale drilling. Also, why are Brazil’s drilling emissions, which I assume are primarily associated with deepwater operations, so much lower that those for the GoM.

BOEM/BSEE and/or the Gulf Research Program (NASEM) would seem to be good sponsors for such a workshop.

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Is the removal of decommissioned offshore pipelines good policy?

Posted in decommissioning, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, Regulation, tagged , , , on October 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Scandpower study (2004) for MMS:

Overall Conclusion
Currently, there are no regulations that require removal of subsea pipelines if they are not an obstruction to navigation. Based on the high costs for removing the pipelines, the personnel risk involved in the removal operations, the negative effect on overall emissions to air and the very limited reduction in discharges to sea, the overall conclusion is that it is better to leave the pipelines in place. If possible, re-use of the pipelines is the optimal solution.

Environmental Impacts
The impacts on the environment and the marine environment from pipelines and cables left in place were found to be very minor. Conversely recovery operations will have a negative impact on the environment. The number of vessels required for removal operations and long operating hours will result in considerably more releases and emissions than leaving the pipelines in place. In addition the energy savings benefit from recycling the pipeline materials will be exceeded by the energy required to remove the pipelines and separate the materials.

Pipeline Decommissioning: Environmental Impact Metric (per Scandpower)

Remove/
recycle 		Remove/
landfill 		Reuse or
preserve 		Bury Abandon
in place
EnergyHighHighLowModerateNone
EmissionsHighHighLowLowLow
DischargesLowLowModerateLowLow
HabitatLowLowModerateLowLow
AestheticsLowModerateNoneNoneNone
Resource
Utilization		HighNoneHighNoneNone
LitteringLowLowLowLowModerate

The “Habitat” impacts row seems questionable. Pipeline removal certainly has a greater impact on habitat than abandonment in place, particularly for buried pipelines.

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U.S. energy policy leaders: Are you comfortable with these trends?

Posted in drilling, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , on October 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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“It’s one of the cleanest lines I’ve ever seen” – Chris Fox, CA State Lands Commission

Posted in accidents, California, Offshore Energy - General, oil, Regulation, tagged , , , , , on October 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This quote from an AP article is consistent with the view expressed here after our review of the inspection reports for the Beta Unit (Platform Elly to shore) pipeline. Further per the AP article:

Safety inspections in 2015, 2017 and 2019 found anomalies in Amplify’s pipeline, including instances of metal loss and three dents that were previously repaired. But several experts who reviewed the reports said the metal loss — which can be a sign of a pipe wall thinning as it corrodes with age — was relatively minor. The dents were not in the same area as the spill.

AP

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Total/Maersk to drill record water depth well offshore Angola

Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , on October 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Maersk Drilling awarded contract extension to drill world record well in Angola

The Ondjaba-1 well will be drilled at a new world record water depth of 3,628 m. The current world record is 3,400 m, set by Maersk Voyager’s sister drillship Maersk Venturer when it drilled the Raya-1 well for TotalEnergies offshore Uruguay in 2016.

Maersk

The record US water depth well (3051m/10,011′) was drilled in 2003 by Transocean for Chevron in Alaminos Canyon Block 951 the Gulf of Mexico. The deepest well drilled in US GoM in 2021 YTD was for Shell in 9352′ of water in Alalminos Canyon Block 815.

While brief celebrity space flights are major news stories, these economically important and technical challenging accomplishments by the offshore industry receive very little attention even as oil prices pierce the $82/bbl mark.

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Inspection reports indicate that Beta Unit pipeline was well maintained.

Posted in accidents, California, Offshore Energy - General, oil, Regulation, tagged , , , , , on October 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Aqueos 2020 external (ROV) inspection:

The 16” oil pipeline was found to be in good condition with no visible damage or anomalies.
One (1) CP test point that was installed in 2014 was found to be displaced from its location on the pipeline (this was also noted in the 2018 survey), and no damage was noted at the location (Fix #101).

Aqueos inspection report, May 2020

Pipe‐to‐electrolyte potential values recorded were:
 ‐ 921 millivolts (mV) on the 6” gas pipeline
 ‐ 910 millivolts (mV) on the 10” water pipeline
 ‐ 963 millivolts (mV) on the 10” gross fluids pipeline
 ‐ 906 millivolts (mV) on the 16” oil pipeline

As the NACE Standard SP0169‐2013 “Control of External Corrosion on Underground or Submerged Metallic Pipelines” criterion is ‐800 mV, all readings indicate that Cathodic Potential is within specifications.

Aqueos inspection report, May 2020

Metal loss data from Baker Hughes internal inspection (12/2019):

Depth of Metal LossExternal AnomaliesInternal Anomalies
30+%00
20-29%10
10-19%00
total10
Baker Hughes In-line Inspection Report, 12/30/2019

The metal loss findings are consistent with those reported in a previous internal inspection (Baker Hughes, 11/2017).

BSEE has general authority to require pipeline inspections under 30 CFR 250.1005. BSEE, the State Lands Commission, and the operator appear to have implemented an effective inspection program for the Beta Unit.

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This will come as no surprise to Federal regulators

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , on October 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Establishing an OSHA rule takes an average of 7 years, and the process has ranged from 15 months to 19 years between 1981 and 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported to Congress in 2012

EHS Daily Advisor

OSHA’s long rule promulgation timeframes are actually quite typical for US regulatory agencies. In some cases, employees work on a single rule for most of their careers! On the plus side, the rigorous internal and public review processes help prevent arbitrary and capricious actions by regulators. However, the long promulgation process often results in regulations that are outdated before they are published. As a result, the entire process repeats and you have a regulatory “do loop.”

To avoid the daunting rulemaking process, regulators often resort to issuing notices, letters, or conditions of approval that accomplish some of their objectives. However, these actions are not always consistent with the rule promulgation requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act and other directives, and are less likely to survive legal challenges.

The optimal approach is for the regulator to establish clear objectives for the operating companies and a schedule for achieving those objectives. This approach was demonstrated following the 2005 hurricane season (Katrina and Rita) when numerous mooring system and other stationkeeping issues were identified. In a face-to-face meeting, Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton outlined her concerns and informed offshore operators that there would be no drilling from moored MODUs or jackups during hurricane season until the issues identified during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were addressed.

The collaborative effort that followed was a resounding success. In addition to addressing station keeping concerns, a comprehensive list of hurricane issues was developed. Industry and government then worked together to assess mitigations and develop new standards and procedures. The essential MODU standards were completed before the 2006 hurricane season, and all of the related concerns were effectively addressed prior to the 2009 hurricane season. Had the government elected to promulgate regulations to address all of these issues, much of this work would have never been completed.

 

 

 

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