http://www.pennenergy.com/...
Never underestimate the USA's long-term planning abilities. Off shore drilling is living proof of the private/public sectors long-term marriage made in heaven, well (no pun) if you are an oil Baron and/or their heirs.
I am beginning to understand Revelation's reference to seas turning red and fish being dead.
You see, when the oceans become sufficiently oxygen deprived, the latent algae spores will be able to bloom, creating what we now call "Red Tide". I grew up on the clam flats of Maine. There was no Red Tide when I was a child. Red Tide started to show up in my early twenties.
Oil disasters like Horizon will help speed up the process as well as global warming.
But Red Tide isn't what the diary is about. Until and unless something BIG is done about it, there are huge plans to drill and drill and drill.
Currently, at least three regions - the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa and Brazil’s steep coastline - are significant hotspots for deepwater and even ultra-deepwater (greater than 7,500 ft) drilling and production. What’s more, some marine areas in northwestern Europe and northern seas are expected to become future centers of increased deepwater drilling activity. Even now, most of the world’s potentially productive deepwater areas are virtually untested by the drill bit.
(Ref B)
There's still an estimated 909 BILLION barrels of oil left under the Gulf of Mexico or more!
According to MMS’ 2000 resource assessment of conventionally recoverable hydrocarbons in the Gulf, 65 billion barrels of oil equivalent total reserves have been produced, but 71 billion barrels of oil equivalent remain.
According to the MMS the undiscovered resource assessment is approximately:
For the western Gulf of Mexico, 37 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
For the central Gulf, over 92 billion BOE.
For the eastern Gulf, about nine billion BOE.
"Of course, our resources estimates are likely to be revised upwards due to new discoveries in entirely new geologic frontiers such as deep gas targets on the shelf," Oynes said.
http://www.aapg.org/...
Did you know that in 1938 the USA used as much oil and the rest of the planet combined. That's USA = The World.
WE, my friends, are the original global warming culprits. And WE need to be the solution. But WE seem to have lost control of wherever the decisions are made, or so it seems.
We hear, over and over again, that it will take decades to wean this country off of oil.
I say Bull Pucky! As long as there is liquid gold out there, we will continue to be dragged by power, money, and influence to use it as a fuel source.
For heaven sakes, KBR (yes, the same KBR of Iraq/Halliburton infamy) was the company that drilled one of the original oil wells in the gulf in 1937 for Chevron (Pure OIl back then)!
Pure Oil? See, they have been using reverse terminology since the beginning of time.
Where's our ire?
Enough is enough.
The US orders a lot of fuel. What if we ordered something other than oil? Wouldn't markets emerge? Well (no pun), if capitalism is all it's cracked up to be, yes. Yes, many would offer us alternative fuels if they knew we wanted to buy alternative fuels and no longer agreed to buy their pure oil.
Just for fun, here's some of the
120 year history of off shore drilling in the United States.
If you stretch the point, the modern deepwater drilling and production environment got its start in the late 19th century when rotary drilling equipment and techniques were adapted to aid in the search for oil. A rotary rig drilled the 1901 Spindletop oil discovery on the Texas Gulf Coast, which historians today mark as the beginning of the Petroleum Age.
(Ref B)
The Gulf of Mexico has alternatively called the Dead Sea and the salvation of domestic oil and gas production. Either way there is no doubt that the Gulf of Mexico has been critically important to the petroleum industry -- and the U.S. consumer -- for over five decades.
(Ref A)
1937
In 1937 Pure Oil Co. (now Chevron) and its partner Superior Oil Co. (now ExxonMobil) reverted to using a fixed platform to develop a large prospect in the tidewater area off Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. Water depth at the site was 14 ft, which was just beyond the upper drilling depth limit for existing barge rigs. The well site was about 1 mile from shore.
Pure Oil, as operator, hired Houston-based Brown & Root Inc. (now KBR Inc.) to construct the platform,...
the first well, drilled to 9,400 feet, produced oil....
they completed 10 more wells, setting a record for the number of wells drilled from a single platform that remained unbroken until the 1950s.
(Ref B)
1946
In 1946, Magnolia Petroleum (now ExxonMobil) vaulted out to a point some 18 miles off the Louisiana coast, erecting a platform in 18 ft of water off Saint Mary Parish, La.
“Although Magnolia didn’t find oil immediately, the company made several important advances in marine engineering. The first use of steel pilings to augment the conventional wooden ones improved the platform’s ability to carry a vertical load so much that offshore operators used them almost exclusively thereafter. Additionally Brown & Root, once again the platform fabricator (by dint of its Creole field platform work years earlier), incorporated steel H-beams to enhance structural integrity from top to bottom. That also became routine in future platform design.”
(Ref B)
1947 -
In early 1947, Superior Oil (now Exxon) erected a drilling/production platform in 20 ft of water some 18 miles off Vermilion Parish, La.
(Ref B)
Kerr-McGee ( now Anadarko Petroleum) made the first Gulf discovery at Ship Shoal 32, about 10 miles off the Louisiana coast in 18 feet of water. The firm is credited with setting the first offshore platform in the Gulf at its new field. Amazingly, that first oil field is still producing 56 years later -- and it is not alone. Many of the earliest discoveries in the Gulf are still producing today.
(Ref A)
“The Ship Shoal Block 32 field, expanded in size by drilling many more wells, produced oil until 1984. When finally plugged and abandoned, it had delivered 1.4 million barrels of oil and 307 million cubic feet of gas from some 30 wells, producing continuously for 37 years.”
(Ref B)
There were some oil spills in 1952.
The oil spill off the Louisiana coast is making big news. Fears are that it will wreak havoc on the coastline and the sea life. Orleans County, Vermont had an oil spill of its own in 1952. No, it wasn’t as disastrous but it did wreak havoc on the Lake Memphremagog watershed. The
The following article appeared in the March 19, 1952 issue of the Newport Daily Express - Burn Off Oil Pools Along Black River
http://www.thekingdomhistorical.com/...
This and the 1952 killer London smog caused from burning coal might have inspired Congress to act. They passed the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act in 2953:
1953 - Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, passed in August 1953, which established federal jurisdiction over submerged lands on the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) seaward of state boundaries.
The law gave the secretary of the interior responsibility for administering mineral exploration and development of the OCS.
According to MMS records 394 leases were turned over to the federal government in 1953, and 130 of those leases are still active today.
1954 - The federal government held its first lease sale in October 1954 offshore Louisiana. MMS records show 199 tracts were offered, and 90 received bids. A total $116,378,476 was offered in high bids and 336 bids were received. The average price per acre was $294.84.
1954 - The second sale was held just one month later for offshore Texas, and 19 bids were received on the 38 tracts offered. Total bonus high bids were over $23 million, and the average price per acre was $347.84.
1959 - The fifth lease sale in federal waters was off Florida’s coast in 1959 -- an area now off-limits to activity. The government offered 80 tracts, and 23 bids were received. Total bonus high bids were $1.7 million, and the average price per acre was $12.92.
1966 - The first subsea well was drilled in 1966 at the Eugene Island 175 Field, operated by Sinclair Oil. The technology has continued to expand, and as of today 330 subsea wells have been drilled in the Gulf.
1978 - And once again, coastal states raised concerns about how the OCS program was run. The 1978 amendments ( to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, passed in August 1953) resulted in states’ sharing revenues from the three-mile boundary out to the six-mile line. Today 27.5 percent of all bonuses, rents and royalties from that three-mile swath are given to the adjacent coastal state.
1979 - What most people might not know is that the first discovery in water depths over 1,000 feet came in 1979 at Shell’s Cognac field in the Green Canyon area.
1980s - The MMS instituted area wide lease sales, which prompted a whole new class of companies with new ideas to enter the Gulf.
2001-2003 - The regeneration of the Gulf of Mexico continues today. In the last few years the potential for deep gas targets on the shelf has been established and a growing list of operators are coming back to the shelf to search the frontiers below 15,000 feet.
And just as it did early in the deepwater play, the MMS has taken steps to entice companies to explore for deep gas. Royalty relief for deep gas from new leases was established a couple of years ago, and earlier this year the agency announced a proposed rule that would extend the royalty relief to existing leases.
Over the years companies have found ways to make Gulf fields of all sizes commercially viable.
Of course, that was not difficult at the region’s largest field discovery, which came just two years ago (2001) when BP uncovered the giant deepwater field, Thunder Horse, in the Mississippi Canyon and Eugene Island areas.
(Ref A)
So, you can see that there is a very long-term plan to develop deep sea oil by the United States. Our US government is very capable of creating and implementing long-term plans regardless of whether a Republican or a Democrat holds the office of President, or who has the majority in Congress. Oil just rules.
And, there have been so many accidents that have caused oil to spill into our seas.
There have been many other accidents involving oil spills throughout the years. Many received not nearly as much media attention as the ones mentioned above. Some more examples of oil spills:
- 1967 Liberian tanker Torrey Canyon spills 120.000 ton oil near Cornwall
- 1968 Witwater tanker spills 14.000 barrels of oil near Panama coast
- 1969 tanker Hamilton trader spills 4.000 barrels of oil in Liverpool Bay, England
- 1970 tanker Arrow spills 77.000 barrels of oil near Nova Scotia, Canada
- 1971 tanker Wafra spills 20.000 barrels of oil near Cape Agulhas, Africa
- 1972 tanker Sea Star catches fire after collision in Gulf of Mexico
- 1974 Dutch tanker Metulla spills 53.000 ton crude oil near South-Chilli
- 1976 Liberian tanker Argo Merchant spilled 29.000 square meters of oil near the Massachusetts coast
- 1976 Spanish tanker Urquillo spills more than 100.000 ton oil near Spain
- 1977 tanker Al Rawdatain spills 7.350 barrels of oil near Genoa, Italy
- 1977 tanker Borug spills 213.692 barrels of oil near the coast of Taiwan
- 1978 Brazilian Marina spills 73.600 barrels of oil near Sao Sebastiao, Brazil
- 1979 Betegeuse spills 14.720 barrels of oil near Bantry Bay, Ireland
- 1979 Ixtoc I exploratory well in Mexico blows out and spills 600.000 tons of oil
- 1984 Alvenus tanker grounds southeast of Cameron, Louisiana and spills 65.000 barrels of oil
- 1985 ARCO Anchorage spills 5.690 barrels of oil near the coast of Washington
- 1986 unknown oil spill reaches the coast of Georgia and is later appointed to the Amazon Vulture tanker
- 1989 Aragon tanker spills 175.000 barrels of oil near Madeira, Portugal
- 1990 tanker American Trader grounds near Huntington Beach, California and spills 9458 barrels of oil
- 1990 Cibro Savannah tanker catches fire and spills 481 square meters of oil
- 1990 Jupiter tanker catches fire in Bay City, Mexico and causes oil spill
- 1990 Mega Borg tanker catches fire and spills 19.000 square meters of oil near Galveston, Texas
- 1991 tanker Bahia Paraiso spills 3.774 barrels of oil near Palmer Station, Antarctica
- 1992 Greek tanker Aegean Sea spills 70.000 ton oil near Galicia
- 1993 Bouchard B155 tanker spills 1.270 square meters of fuel oil after collision with 2 ships
- 1996 Liberian tanker Sea Empress spills 147.000 ton oil near Wales
- 1999 Maltese tanker Erika spills 30.000 ton oil near Brittany
- 2001 tanker Jessica spills 900 ton oil near the Galapagos Isles
- 2002 Bahamese Prestige spills oil near Galicia
These are but a number of that have occurred throughout history. Unfortunately, there are many more.
Read more: http://www.lenntech.com/...
Imagine how much oil has been spilled if all the oil spills were listed. Imagine a world without seas. There is no plan to end offshore drilling. On the contrary! They plan on extracting nearly a TRILLION BARRELS OF OIL STILL LEFT IN THE GULF OF MEXICO !!!!
Reference A: GOM: Proud Past, Bright Future http://www.aapg.org/...
Reference B, Pending merger of giant drillers signals long life for deepwater operations, which includes excerpts from the book Pioneering Offshore: The Early Years: http://www.pennenergy.com/...
Are the powers and money hell bent on destroying our planet or what?
We have to stop this toxic insanity!
Is it possible that the power and money behind oil is affecting our economy so that we appear to NOT have the money to shift to clean energy? The question isn't that far out, is it?