Posted in Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, Russia | Tagged explosions, Nord Stream, pipelines, who did it? | Leave a Comment »
Grateful for my family and friends, and the many outstanding energy professionals I have had the privilege of working with!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Thanksgiving | Leave a Comment »
Per Regulations.gov. BSEE received 30 comments on the proposed revisions to the Well Control Rule, 25 of which have been posted. The other comments were presumably deemed inappropriate for posting per the guidance at Regulations.gov.
Two of the responses were submitted collectively by 8 industry trade associations. Only 3 operating companies commented and their comments largely echoed the trade association responses. Only 2 drilling contractors responded independently. Four service and engineering companies commented.
Three environmental organizations, a group of Atlantic states, a government watchdog, and a law school provided comments.
Three individuals and 4 anonymous or unknown parties commented.
Below is a list of the respondents preceded by their comment identifiers. More to follow.
- 0003 Foley Engineering
- 0004 Frank Adamek
- 0005 Anonymous
- 0006 Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
- 0007 E.P. Danenberger
- 0008 Chevron
- 0009 B. Mercier
- 0010 Anonymous
- 0011 Anonymous
- 0012 Foley Engineering (2nd comment)
- 0013 HMH (?)
- 0014 NYU School of Law
- 0015 Beacon Offshore
- 0016 Shell
- 0017 Diamond Offshore
- 0018 7 industry trade associations: API, IADC, IPAA, NOIA, OOC, EWTC, USOGA
- 0019 NOV (service company)
- 0020 NRDC
- 0021 Oceana
- 0022 Transocean
- 0023 Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association
- 0024 Kinetic Pressure Control Limited
- 0025 Attorneys General of Maryland, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina
- 0026 Ocean Conservancy
- 0027 Rigscope International
Posted in Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, well control incidents | Tagged BSEE, commenters, Well Control Rule | Leave a Comment »
Posted in energy policy | Tagged SPR depletion, Strategic Petroleum Reserve | 1 Comment »
On September 14, 2022, BOEM announced that 307 high bids from Lease Sale 257 in the Gulf of Mexico were accepted. BOEM also announced that one high bid was rejected for not providing the public with fair market value. BOEM has not identified the rejected bid.
Per BOEM’s Lease Area Block Online Query file, 306 Sale 257 leases were effective on Oct. 1, 2022. A comparison of these data with the sale results identified 2 Sale 257 leases that have not been awarded:
| lease | block | high bidder(s) | bid | comments |
| G37261 | GC 70 | BHP | $3.6 million | lone bid; 7th highest bid in sale |
| G37294 | GC 777 | BP (75%), Talos (25%) | $1.8 million | 2 bids; next highest $1.185 million |
So one of these 2 bids was rejected and the other has lease not yet been awarded for some reason (or perhaps there has been a clerical/IT issue).
Which bid was rejected? I would guess it was the BHP bid even though that bid was the 7th highest bid in the entire sale. The fact that this bid was $2.5 to $3 million higher than the other 7 BHP bids (all of which were accepted) tells us that the company valued this tract highly. Perhaps BOEM, which has all of the geologic data, thought the value was even higher, which is why the bid may have been rejected.
There was another bidder (Chevron) for the BP/Talos tract, so the competition makes it less likely that the bid would have been rejected.
Ironically, the 94 carbon sequestration bids, which made something of a mockery of the lease sale, could not be rejected on fair market grounds. The bids exceeded the minimum required, and the tracts have little or no value from an oil and gas production standpoint. A competitive process would be require to repurpose these leases for carbon sequestration.
Posted in CCS, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General | Tagged BHP, CCS, Gulf of Mexico, Lease Sale 257, rejected bid | Leave a Comment »
Was 2021 the low point? Hopefully that is the case, but consistent leasing is essential.
Looks like Woodside is now officially the GoM operator of record (was BHP prior to merger). Kudos to them.
Shell continues to be the GoM bellwether. There is no OCS program without them.
What’s up with BP and Chevron? Big declines from both.
US super-majors Exxon and ConocoPhillips remain out of the picture, both in terms of lease acquisition and exploration. Disappointing.
Tip of the hat to Hess, LLOG, Murphy, and Talos – independents committed to deepwater production.
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General | Tagged bp, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, deepwater exploration, Exxon, Gulf of Mexico, Hess, LLOG, Murphy, Shell, Talos, Woodside | Leave a Comment »
Sweden’s prosecutor’s office said Friday that an investigation into gas leaks from two underwater pipelines connecting Russia to Germany found traces of explosives, confirming that it is a case of “serious sabotage.”
CNBC
Posted in energy, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, Russia | Tagged explosives, Nord Stream, Sweden | Leave a Comment »
Update on the most promising renewable energy alternative:
Quaise has received a grant from the Department of Energy to scale up Woskov’s experiments using a larger gyrotron. With the larger machine, the team hopes to vaporize a hole 10 times the depth of Woskov’s lab experiments by the end of this year. After that, the team will vaporize a hole 10 times the depth of the previous one — what co-founder Matt Houde calls a 100-to-1 hole.
“That’s something [the DOE] is particularly interested in, because they want to address the challenges posed by material removal over those greater lengths — in other words, can we show we’re fully flushing out the rock vapors?” Houde explains. “We believe the 100-to-1 test also gives us the confidence to go out and mobilize a prototype gyrotron drilling rig in the field for the first field demonstrations.”
Rather than getting deep in the weeds of carbon capture, imagine powering those existing facilities with steam generated without carbon emissions at all.
The key is that ultradeep geothermal has the power density and scalability of fossil fuels.
Posted in CCS, climate, energy | Tagged gyrotron, Quaise Energy, renewable energy, ultradeep geothermal | Leave a Comment »
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 
OK, but what do you think about the revisions to the Well Control Rule? 😀
November 23, 2022 by offshoreenergy
Diverse input on proposed regulations is healthy and desirable. However, comments should not be posted at Regulations.gov unless (1) the commenter is identified and (2) the comments include at least one sentence about the regulation being proposed.
Posted in Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, well control incidents | Tagged BSEE Director, comments, Well Control Rule | Leave a Comment »