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Archive for the ‘Offshore Energy – General’ Category

Kudos for Kosmos!

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , on October 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Kosmos Energy announces deepwater GoM discovery. Oxy and Equinor are partners in this venture.

The Tiberius exploration well tested a four-way structural trap in the outboard Wilcox trend, located in Keathley Canyon Block 964. The well encountered approximately 250 feet (~75 meters) of net oil pay in the primary Wilcox target. Wireline logging has been completed and casing is currently being run to the target depth to enable the well to be used as a future oil producer. The Tiberius well is located in approximately 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) of water and was drilled to a total vertical depth of approximately 25,800 feet (7,800 meters).

BSEE data indicate that Kosmos has an excellent compliance record, having been cited for only 3 violations during 44 facility inspections (83 inspection types) since 1/1/2018.

Per the latest available BSEE summaries, Kosmos did not pay any civil penalties from 2019 through 2022.

One quibble: the Kosmos news release does not name the drilling unit or drilling contractor. The rig crew is the group most responsible for safely drilling the well.

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Letter from House Committee on Small Business to BOEM on the Rice’s whale restrictions

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , on October 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »

The letter is attached.

Item 5 (ouch!):

  1. Is it accurate to describe BOEM’s agreement with the Sierra Club as a “sue and settle” arrangement?
    a. If so, does BOEM intend to continue making decisions through “sue and settle” tactics?
    b. How can the Committee attain confidence that the BOEM is considering the interest of small businesses in its decision-making when its decisions are made behind closed doors with special interest groups?
10.12.2023_-__letter_re_rfa_-_boem_rice_whaleDownload

Last week, the 5th Circuit heard arguments on the appeal by Earthjustice et al of Judge Cain’s decision to remove the Rice’s whale restrictions from Sale 261 leases. The sale is to be held on Nov. 8 per the 5th Circuit’s order.

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Exxon’s acquisition of Pioneer is impressive, but their business strategy seems a bit hypocritical

Posted in climate, energy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , on October 12, 2023| 2 Comments »

Impressive acquisition:

Hypocrisy?

  • Exxon is clearly intent on maximizing production in the Permian. This makes good business sense and is good for the US economy.
  • Contradictorily, Exxon intends to establish a CO2 disposal business (“carbon sequestration”) in the Gulf of Mexico. Is their goal to profit from emissions resulting from the consumption of the production that they are maximizing?
  • If Exxon believes the consumption of oil and gas is harmful to society, as suggested by their CO2 disposal plans, perhaps they should be curtailing their oil and gas production business rather than expanding it.
  • Deepwater Gulf of Mexico production, which Exxon has shunned, has much lower carbon intensity than Permian production, but Exxon’s sole GoM interest is CO2 disposal. Shouldn’t a company that is intent on reducing upstream GHG emissions be active in the leading offshore region in that regard, the region that is adjacent to their world headquarters?

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How NOT to manage our oil and gas leasing program

Posted in Alaska, climate, energy policy, Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , on October 11, 2023| 1 Comment »

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Important reports and comments on the Rice’s whale restrictions in the Gulf of Mexico

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , on October 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

API’s comments on the Rice’s whale restrictions include a balanced assessment by Darren Ireland (begins on p. 22), a respected marine mammal scientist, and a good analysis of the economic impacts by EIAP.

Darren Ireland concludes (emphasis added):

“The proposed critical habitat has been deemed, by NMFS, to have the essential physical and biological features needed for the Rice’s whale to feed, breed, and reproduce. However, direct evidence for what oceanographic features within the 100-400 m isobath band identified by NMFS are required to sustain the Rice’s whale is lacking, and the extent of those truly important features elsewhere in the GOMx is uncertain and may not reach into the central or northwestern GOMx as predicted by the habitat based density model (Garrison et al. 2023). Even though there is evidence to support the possible occurrence of Rice’s whale near the FGBNMS in the northwestern GOMx, there are no data that show this area is being used to support important life history functions such as breeding, feeding, or migrating. Additionally, the sightings and acoustic detections that have been recorded there are much less frequent than those recorded for Rice’s whale in the core habitat in the northeastern GOMx. Based on the limited data available on the use and occurrence of Rice’s whale in the central and northwestern GOMx (one acoustic study (Soldevilla et al. 2022b), one confirmed sighting (NMFS 2018a) and a few unconfirmed sightings (Rosel et al. 2021)), there is insufficient scientific evidence to determine that essential features for Rice’s whale conservation are indeed present in the central and northwestern GOMx. In fact, data on the life-history requirements of Rice’s whale even in the core habitat are still lacking and need further investigation.“

EIAP’s key findings on the estimated economic impacts from these restrictions are summarized in the table below. Those are very significant costs given the uncertainty of the whale habitat in the central and western GoM.

Separate comments submitted by the Offshore Operators Committee are also quite strong. Their letter is attached.

2023_10_06_ooc_comment_letter_proposed_rule_designation_of_critical_habitat_for_the_rices_whale_finalDownload

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Israel and US offshore gas production are nearly equivalent

Posted in energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , on October 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Production at Chevron’s Leviathan, a giant offshore gas field

This may come as a surprise to many, but Israel produced 752 billion cubic feet of gas in 2022, which is nearly equivalent to US offshore gas production (788 bcf in 2022).

Chevron is the main operator in Israel, having purchased Noble’s assets in 2020. Absent Noble’s bold and pioneering exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, Israel would have continued to be an energy importer dependent on coal for power generation.

Presumably, the protection of these offshore assets is a high priority for the Israeli Navy.

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Israel, Gaza, and offshore gas

Posted in energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , on October 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

In June, Israel gave preliminary approval for the development of a gas field off the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Marine field is 30 km offshore and is estimated to hold more than a trillion cubic feet of gas.

Hamas has affirmed their rights to the resources offshore Gaza.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office linked approval to progress on “preserving the State of Israel’s security and diplomatic needs.”

Hopes for developing the Gaza Marine field have presumably been dashed along with the associated economic benefits for the people of Gaza.

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RIP Ed Tennyson – leading oil spill response researcher and innovator

Posted in Canada, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Ed Tennyson

Edward J. Tennyson passed away last Friday at his Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia home. Ed worked in the Department of the Interior’s offshore program for more than 20 years, and arguably has done more than any single individual to advance oil spill response capabilities. A few of Ed’s many achievements:

  • Ohmsett: EPA operated the Ohmsett spill response test tank in Leonardo, New Jersey, beginning in the early 1970s, but the facility fell into disrepair in the 1980s. Thanks to Ed’s vision and persistence, and the enactment of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) began restoring the facility. Ed led the effort and did everything from operating forklifts to designing upgrades. Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ) and a host of dignitaries participated in the grand reopening event in 1992. It was an amazing day, and Ohmsett, MMS’s only industrial facility, has exceeded even Ed’s lofty expectations. 
  • Burning oil slicks: Ed and a few of his US and international partners were the first to consider in situ burning as an oil spill response method. After some lab work, Ed proposed larger scale testing at Ohmsett in the presence of ice. The testing was amazingly successful, removing almost all of the oil. When Ed told a leading skeptic about the impressive results, his response was “you didn’t do it right.” 😀 
  • Newfoundland burn: Because research spills were prohibited in US waters, Ed worked with his Canadian partners to conduct an in situ burning test offshore Newfoundland in 1993. Ed was an amazing leader during any kind of field trials, and was always the first person on the dock directing team members to their stations!
  • Remote sensing: Ed’s research led to a patent on the use of shipborne radar for locating oil slicks. Ed greatly advanced this capability by developing tools for airborne mapping and thickness determinations. As Ed frequently said, “90% of the oil is in 10% of the area.” By identifying where the oil was thickest, you could optimize spill response. (Ed was also an expert at identifying slicks with what he called his mach 20 eyeball 😀).
  • Chemical treatment: Ed was a leader in researching dispersants, herding agents, and other chemical methods for preventing spills from impacting shorelines or other sensitive areas.

Ed was an entertaining and informative speaker and was often called upon to brief congressional panels, and discuss his research at public meetings and professional conferences. He was rightfully a media darling and was often contacted for comments on oil spill response matters. Perhaps his most famous quote was in the Wall Street Journal during the Valdez spill in Prince William Sound. Ed described the spill response as follows: “Like mowing a 40 acre field with a 1/4 inch lawn mower.” 😉

RIP Ed, you made a difference!

Newfoundland Offshore Burn Experiment, 1993

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Odd rig choice for the cover of the leasing program (Part 1)

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , on October 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

That’s the Polar Pioneer, an arctic class rig built in 1985 that last operated in the Chukchi Sea in 2015. The rig was recycled in Aliaga, Turkey in 2020. The US arctic, like 96.3% of US offshore waters, is no longer open to oil and gas leasing, and was not included in the new leasing program.

The Polar Pioneer was once a good rig for sub-arctic operations, but is not at all similar to the modern drilling units that are used on the deepwater Gulf of Mexico leases that now account for 93% of OCS oil production and 76% of the natural gas. With the exception of the GoM shelf, which is laudably being gleaned by independent producers, the deepwater GoM blocks are all that is left of the once robust US offshore leasing program.

Unless the picture of the scrapped drilling rig is intended to be symbolic of the current state of the leasing program, the photo choice implies inattention to significant technical details. The document does not include a single picture of a deepwater drilling unit or production facility.

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Respected Deputy Secretary, Tommy Beaudreau, exits Interior

Posted in Alaska, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , on October 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Tommy Beaudreau, an Obama appointee during the turbulent months following the Macondo blowout, has announced that he will be leaving the Department of the Interior (DOI) at the end of the month.

Tommy first served as Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE), a transition bureau in the wake of the blowout, and was later named Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), one of the two new bureaus that were established to manage the offshore program. He subsequently served as DOI Chief of Staff, and was appointed Deputy Secretary in 2021.

Tommy was a strong leader and an energy moderate. He was highly regarded by the rank and file in BOEMRE and BOEM.

The press release announcing his departure is very professional with appropriate quotes from Secretary Haaland and Tommy. No reasons for his resignation are provided. However, given his balanced perspective on energy development, it would not be wildly speculative to suggest that he might have been a bit uncomfortable working in the policy bubble that produced documents like the latest offshore leasing plan.

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