There are 67 NGOs with observer status at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) as of March 2026, which explains why nothing gets done. More than thirty years after its creation, there is still no final Mining Code for nodule exploitation.
“Deep‑sea mining disturbs low‑productivity abyssal ecosystems and may have long‑lasting local effects on small communities of widely distibuted organisms reliant upon the nodules themselves, but avoids the deforestation, human displacement and occupational hazards of many terrestrial mines. The ethical question is whether it is better to concentrate impacts on a relatively small portion of the most common habitat on Earth, or to continue expanding high‑impact mining frontiers on land like tropical rainforests.“
“The job of a regulator is not to deliver closure for activists. It is to regulate access to resources designated as the “common heritage of mankind” in a way that balances environmental protection, equitable benefit sharing and global development needs. That will always involve trade‑offs.“
Per EIA, Gulf of America oil production declined in May by over 200,000 bopd from April’s record production, which was corrected upward by 2000 bopd. Was the April number anomalous? We’ll need additional monthly data and the audited ONRR numbers to get a better read.
EIA posted corrected April and May totals of 30,000 bopd for the Pacific (California OCS), a 150% increase from February owing to the Sable Santa Ynez Unit restart. Although Pacific OCS production has been in the doldrums for years, the region has an impressive record of 202,000 bopd from Dec 1995.
Atlantis is located about 150 miles south of New Orleans and has been in production for nearly 20 years. The expansion project adds two new subsea water injection wells to help increase the pressure of targeted reservoirs, unlocking additional barrels and extending the producing life of one of bp’s flagship US offshore assets.
The project, which was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget, adds approximately 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) of gross peak annualized average production, with around 5,000 boe/d net to bp.
Some of you may remember the 2009 False Claims Act allegations by a former BP contractor claiming that BP did not properly maintain the engineer-approved “as built” drawings of systems and structures aboard the Atlantis facility. The contractor alleged that the absence of the documentation created increased safety risks for the facility and to its personnel.
Following the allegations, an industry source closely involved with the project (but not a BP employee) made the following comment to the BOE blog:
Atlantis was by far, in my opinion, the best of the bunch; proceeded as a normal construction project. The PMs were the best I’ve come across.
BOEMRE (the name of the offshore safety regulator at the time) conducted a comprehensive investigation of the matter. Director Michael Bromwich sumarized the findings:
“As the report makes clear, although we found significant problems with the way BP labeled and maintained its engineering drawings and related documents, we found the most serious allegations to be without merit, including the suggestion that a lack of adequate documentation created a serious safety risk on the Atlantic facility. We found no credible evidence to support that claim.”
A 7/28/2026 Dept. of Justice brief submitted to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals cites the 5/28/2026 Supreme Court decision in Flowers Foods Inc. v. Brock in asserting that Sable’s onshore pipeline segments are interstate and subject to Federal jurisdiction.
This filing is part of multi-faceted litigation involving Federal preemption, a 2020 Consent Decree, emergency special permits, and state environmental concerns. The Ninth Circuit is handling the expedited briefings and consolidation of petitions.
DoJ’s core argument is that Sable’s onshore segments do not interrupt the continuous “flow of commerce” from Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) offshore extraction → onshore processing → further transport to terminals (e.g., in Kern County). Thus, the system qualifies as interstate commerce subject to Federal (PHMSA) oversight rather than state regulation.
The Flowers Foods Inc. v. Brock case considered similar flow of commerce issues. The SCOTUS agreed with the Tenth Circuit that Brock delivery franchisees were engaged in interstate commerce even if they never cross State lines. The gist of the decision is as follows (emphasis added, full decision attached):
The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires courts to enforce many private arbitration agreements, but it also provides that “nothing” in the law shall be used to compel arbitration in disputes involving the “contracts of employment” of any class of workers “engaged in . . . interstate commerce.” 9 U. S. C. §1. This case poses the question whether someone can qualify as a worker under the §1 exemption if he never crosses state lines and never interacts with vehicles that do. Flowers Foods, Inc., is a large producer of packaged baked goods with bakeries in 19 States. To get its products to market, the company depends in part on franchisees who buy the distribution rights to Flowers’s products in specific geographic territories. Angelo Brock is one such franchisee serving the Denver area; he picks up Flowers’s products from a warehouse in Colorado and delivers them to local stores, all without leaving the State. In 2022, Brock sued Flowers in federal district court alleging that the company had underpaid him and other distributors in violation of various federal and state laws. Flowers moved to compel arbitration, arguing that the FAA generally requires courts to stay or dismiss cases when the parties have agreed to resolve their disputes by arbitration and that Brock had signed a distribution agreement promising to arbitrate any disagreement. The district court denied Flowers’s motion, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed. Resting its decision on 9 U. S. C. §1, the Tenth Circuit reasoned that Brock belonged to a class of workers engaged in interstate commerce and thus the court lacked authority to compel arbitration.
We should soon find out what the Ninth Circuit thinks!
North Sea pioneer JL Daeschler comments on the passing of Sir Ian Wood: “A great North Seas leader who had an amazing career. He founded the Wood Group, an internationally important engineering firm. Mustang Engineering, well known to the US offshore industry, became part of the Wood Group in 2000.”
I knew Ian in the early North Sea development stage. He became Sir Ian Wood. We used to chat at various conferences in Houston, Stavanger, and Aberdeen. Ian was an energetic man, who had a friendly a approach to our North Sea challenges. He was a true Aberdonian entrepreneur who employed 1000’s in offshore related disciplines worldwide.
Sir Ian turned his father’s fishing business into the Wood Group oil giant, leading the way as Aberdeen blossomed into Europe’s energy capital. When Sir Ian announced his retirement in 2012, Wood Group employed 41,000 people in 50 countries.
MMA’s public notice about support for space launch activities (Rigs-to-Rockets) recognizes the importance of collaboration between the highly innovative offshore and space industries.
In that regard, Seagate Space, a Florida company, is moving forward with plans for offshore launches. Seagate is “developing cutting-edge maritime infrastructure to avoid land site limitations and scale orbital launch cadence for commercial, government, and defense missions.”
Seagate’s Space Gateway-S platform has adopted features that have been widely applied by the offshore industry:
Autonomous dynamic positioning – developed and advanced by the drilling industry
Modular architecture – common in offshore facility design
Pontoon design – ala semi-submersible drilling units
Mobility – like mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) – jackups, drillships, semi-submersibles
Space Florida, a public corporation and innovation connector, recently announced a partnership with Seagate Space:
EXPLORATION PARK, Fla.—June 2, 2026—Today,Space Florida announced Project Manta, a strategic investment in Seagate Space to expand Florida’s launch capacity through specialized maritime solutions. Space Florida’s Board of Directors approved an investment to prototype and demonstrate key elements of Seagate Space’s novel offshore launch infrastructure system, setting the stage for future development and manufacturing within the state of Florida.
GWEC, the voice of the wind industry, continues to scale down estimates for floating turbines. In 2024, the GWEC expected 835MW of floating wind to be installed in 2027. Last year, this was lowered to 278MW, and expectations dropped further in the 2026 report to just 42MW. A similar trend applies to GWEC’s forecasts for the following years.
Despite strong support from the State, California’s offshore wind sector faces major challenges:
Deepwater technology: California offshore wind development is totally dependent on expensive and still unproven floating turbine technology. Norway, once a world leader in floating wind, has lost enthusiasm and is now requiring floating projects to be ‘quality-assured.’
Infrastructure: Major port upgrades, new transmission lines to bring power ashore, and specialized vessels are required. The supply chain is immature.
Costs: High capital costs plus storage costs (e.g. batteries) for reliability.
Two of the three Central Coast wind lessees (diagram below) have agreed to lease buyback deals. A lease cancellation letter is attached. The State is challenging the buyback agreements, and is thus in the difficult position of opposing deals that the wind developers voluntarily agreed to and believe are in their best interest. Does the State lose regardless of the outcome of their challenge?
The third Central Coast lessee, Equinor, is curtailing wind investments and has no plans to pursue new offshore wind projects in the US. A buyback deal with Equinor would be complicated by the company’s Empire Wind commitments, and is probably unnecessary given that Equinor has taken itself out of the game.
The two Northern California leases are still active, but the focus has been on regional planning. Funding for necessary infrastructure projects is uncertain and any wind lease development is far in the future.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), as passed by the House this week, includes an amendment (attached) authorizing the Federal govt to acquire all lands along the Santa Ynez Pipeline System route. Wesley Hunt (TX), who introduced the amendment, comments in the short video below. The Senate has yet to approve the bill.
Assuming Sable’s attorneys are able to continue navigating through the legal minefield, the success of the project will depend on the performance of Sable’s well operations and production teams, and the extent to which they have the authority and confidence to curtail operations when deemed necessary to protect workers and the environment. In that regard, MMA engineers and inspectors have an important role in identifying risks and assuring that they are mitigated.
Excerpt from the amendment:
SEC. 28ll. ACQUISITION OF EASEMENTS FOR DEFENSE FUEL SUPPLY INFRASTRUCTURE. (a) AUTHORITY TO ACQUIRE.—The Secretary of Defense is authorized to acquire, by purchase, donation, exchange, or condemnation, on behalf of the United States, such permanent easements over all lands along the route of the Santa Ynez Pipeline System, including all lands owned or otherwise held by the State of California or any agency, department, or instrumentality thereof, as the Secretary of Defense determines necessary to ensure continuous pipeline transportation of crude oil from the Santa Ynez Unit to domestic refineries supplying Department of Defense installations in the State of California
“Submerged reactor systems have been safely deployed in naval applications for decades, demonstrating their potential as a reliable source of energy in demanding marine environments. While no commercial deployment on the Outer Continental Shelf is planned or approved at this time, it could greatly strengthen America’s energy security in the future,” said MMA Acting Director Matt Giacona. “With nearly 3.2 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf under federal jurisdiction, this MOU is an important step toward building the technical expertise, regulatory clarity, and interagency coordination needed to assess whether and how this technology could be responsibly implemented in the years ahead.”
As noted in previous posts, the Cox legacy of non-compliance has continued under new ownership. In 2026 YTD, Array Petroleum accounted for 52% of Gulf of America Incidents of Non-Compliance (INCs) while operating only 12% of the platforms, and producing only 0.06% of the oil and 0.17% of the gas (2025 production data). Their 2026 YTD INCs/inspection ratio is 7.55 times the Gulf average and 14.6 times the Gulf average if Array inspections are excluded.
The only platform operated directly by NRW was cited for 3 INCs on 2 inspections.
Per MMA data, W&T operates 117 platforms in the Gulf. The number of platforms that were included in the acquisition of the 6 Cox fields is unknown. W&T’s INC/inspection ratio in 2023, the year before the Cox acquisition, was 0.72 (80/111), which was better than their 2026 performance (0.94), but worse than the Gulf-wide 2023 average of 0.57. So W&T’s compliance relative to other Gulf operators was about the same before and after the acquisition.
According to the borehole file, neither Array, NRW, nor W&T conducted any drilling operations in 2026 YTD.
Kudos to the MMA inspectors for their diligence in identifying INCs and issuing citations. The 2026 YTD data table is below.
W
CSI
FSI
total INCs
facility insp
INCs/isp
Array
403
115
4
522
88
5.93
NRW
1
2
0
3
2
1.50
W&T
38
46
4
88
94
0.94
GoA total
653
296
56
1005
1280
0.785
Notes: Numbers are from published BSEE data (7/21/2026 inquiry); INC=incident of non-compliance; W=warning INC; CSI=component shut-in INC; FSI=facility shut-in INC; INCs/insp= INCs issued per facility inspection; each facility-inspection may include multiple types of inspections (e.g. production, pipeline, pollution, Coast Guard, site security, etc)
