http://www.alaskadispatch.com/dispatches/energy/7684-white-house-oks-potential-alaska-offshore-drilling

This is the price we pay for banning oil on the East and West coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico. DV

Patti Epler | Dec 1, 2010

The White House has decided to allow potential drilling in areas off Alaska’s northern coast, but officials say they’ll be cautious when deciding to approve exploration plans and leases. According to an Associated Press story (via the Anchorage Daily News), the federal government won’t pursue exploration off of the East Coast and Florida for at least the next seven years. Read much more from the AP, here.

Meanwhile, both Alaska senators are applauding the decision because it means Shell oil company may be able to move ahead with plans to drill an exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea this coming summer. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a press release that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called her this morning to tell her that all existing leases not under congressional moratorium would be honored. That means Interior will resume consideration of Shell’s application to drill test wells in the Beaufort in summer 2011, she said.

“This isn’t a slam dunk but it’s a step in the right direction, at least in Alaska,” Murkowski said.

Shell’s Alaska spokesman, Curtis Smith, said in an e-mail that the company is hopeful the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will complete its review in an expeditious manner.

“Today’s announcement was a positive one for Alaska and acknowledges that responsible oil and gas exploration can take place in the Arctic,” Smith said. “While Shell continues to make plans to drill in 2011; a final decision on our Beaufort Sea drilling permit is needed soon for Shell to continue to pursue 2011 exploration drilling.”

Environmental groups, who are still opposed to offshore drilling in the Arctic until companies demonstrate they can respond to and clean up an oil spill there, took Salazar’s announcement a bit differently, interpreting it as a statement that more environmental review is needed before Shell can proceed in the Beaufort Sea.

The groups were glad to hear that there will be a supplemental environmental assessment, although Shell said the review is essentially the same one that has already been done. More than a dozen local and national conservation organizations joined in the prepared statement and called for a full environmental impact statement before Shell can proceed. That process generally takes at least a year.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.npr.org/2010/11/29/131660871/deep-water-dive-reveals-oil-on-bottom-of-gulf
Special thanks to James Cervino and Coral-list

http://www.ogj.com/index/article-display/2551923921/articles/oil-gas-journal/exploration-development-2/2010/12/salazar-puts_atlantic/QP129867/cmpid=EnlEDDecember22010.html

It’s about time….DV

Dec 1, 2010
Nick Snow
OGJ Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, Dec. 1 — Emphasizing that the administration of US President Barack Obama remains committed to developing federal offshore oil and gas resources, Interior Sec. Ken Salazar said on Dec. 1 that Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico areas will be excluded from the 2012-17 Outer Continental Shelf 5-year leasing program.

Lease sales in the central and western gulf will be held, but only when a supplemental environmental impact statement studying consequences of the spill from BP PLC’s Macondo well is completed, he added during a teleconference with reporters. “We will do everything we can to proceed with lease sales there at the end of 2011 and in early 2012,” he declared.

“As a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill we learned a number of lessons, most importantly that we need to proceed with caution and focus on creating a more stringent regulatory regime,” Salazar continued. “As that regime continues to be developed and implemented, we have revised our initial March leasing strategy to focus and expend our critical resources on areas with leases that are currently active.”

Oil and gas association leaders immediately criticized his move. “As our country looks for ways out of the hole of lackluster economic growth and job creation, today’s decision shows that this administration would rather keep digging than take the ladder to increased economic prosperity offered by developing our nation’s domestic energy resources,” American Petroleum Institute Pres. Jack N. Gerard said.

Bruce H. Vincent, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America and president of Swift Energy Co. in Houston, maintained, “If there were any questions as to whether or not this administration is more interested in picking winners and losers in the energy market and waging an unbridled war on America’s oil and gas producers than creating jobs and putting our nation on a path toward energy security, they were put to rest with today’s misguided announcement that will keep even more taxpayer-owned energy resources further out of reach and under Washington’s lock-and-key.”

‘Relieved, disappointed’
National Ocean Industries Association Pres. Randall B. Luthi said he was relieved that Salazar apparently is moving forward on developing a 2012-17 OCS program, but disappointed that scheduled 2011 lease sales will be delayed and possibly canceled, particularly off Virginia, where bipartisan support remains, and the eastern gulf, where deepwater resources hold great promise.

“What would be more valuable to the nation’s economic and energy future would be the recognition that valuable energy resources lie in those areas that have been kept off-limits to even exploration for decades, and will now apparently continue to be locked away,” Luthi said.

Salazar said information will continue to be gathered about environmental impacts of conducting seismic studies of the South and Mid-Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. Rigorous scientific analysis of the Arctic also will continue to determine if future oil and gas development can take place there, although no lease sales are currently planned, he indicated.

US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement Director Michael R. Bromwich, who also participated in the teleconference, announced that the DOI agency responsible for managing the nation’s offshore resources is completing an agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under which NOAA will collaborate with BOEMRE in the environmental analysis for OCS planning.

Environmental organizations endorsed Salazar’s action. “We need to make sure we never see another oil spill like the BP disaster. Keeping the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast out of the new 5-year drilling plan is a significant step in the right direction,” said Sierra Club Land Protection Director Athan Manuel. “But an oil spill like the BP disaster could happen anywhere-in Alaska, or in other parts of the central and western gulf where drilling is allowed.”

But Karen A. Harbert, president of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said the move sends exactly the wrong signals. “By continuing to keep most of America’s abundant oil and gas resources under lock and key, the Obama administration is ensuring that we will continue to increase our dependence on foreign oil, which threatens our national security,” she maintained. “The administration is sending a message to America’s oil and gas industry: Take your capital, technology, and jobs somewhere else.”

Contact Nick Snow at nicks@pennwell.com.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45865.html

Thank goodness someone (in an official capacity) is willing to speak out on this…..long overdue. DV

Politico: BP, Halliburton and Transocean – ‘were fully implicated in the catastrophe,’ Reilly said.

By DARREN GOODE | 12/2/10 11:37 AM EST

The Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan presidential commission investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill said Thursday he has seen “indisputable evidence of a widespread lack of serious preparation, of planning, of management” in the oil and gas industry.

“That culture must change,” said William Reilly at the final public session of the Obama administration’s BP spill commission.

Three companies – BP, Halliburton and Transocean – “were fully implicated in the catastrophe,” Reilly said, while other companies “had no effective containment preparations and laughable response plans.”

Reilly, the Environmental Protection Agency chief under President George H.W. Bush, added: “We are not dealing here with a sick or failing or unsuccessful industry but with a complacent one.”

The Gulf spill began April 20 when BP’s Macondo well ruptured 5,000 feet below the Deepwater Horizon rig owned by Transocean. Halliburton was contracted by BP to handle cementing work on the well.

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling is holding its sixth and final two-day public session Thursday and Friday before submitting recommendations to President Barack Obama in January. The commission Thursday is hearing presentations from staff and deliberating on the safety culture in the offshore drilling industry, regulatory oversight, environmental review, drilling in the Arctic and oil spill response.

While the three companies have largely fired shots at one another, much of the commission’s probe has looked at the cementing work Halliburton did on the well and whether the company and BP adequately ensured that the cement used was adequately tested. BP’s well design has also come under scrutiny, as has why the well’s blowout preventer – the last defense against a blowout – failed.

Commission Co-chairman and former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) echoed in his opening remarks that the panel has learned “not to lay blame on just a few rogue companies,” while noting the probe has also uncovered “fundamental weaknesses” in the federal government’s ability to regulate and oversee oil and gas exploration and production.

Graham added that he remains “mystified as to why a few senators decided to deny this commission this power when subpoena power has been granted as almost an absolute for congressional commissions which have analogous responsibilities to ours.”

He added that the lack of subpoena power “has made our commission’s work more difficult.” The success of the panel so far, Graham said, “is a testament both to the determination and [to the] skill of our team and to the plain fact that the problems and deficiencies of the current safety regime are so egregious.”

Republican senators – upset over the makeup of the seven-member panel and the lack of a panel whose members are selected by Congress – have opposed granting subpoena power to the panel appointed by Obama. The House has twice approved granting the panel subpoena power.

____________________________________

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Wow. This is great news for the East and West coasts and the Gulf; at the expense of Alaska. DV

Dec. 1, 2010, 3:24 p.m. EST

Plans lease sales in already developed areas

By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The federal government on Wednesday said it would keep the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic off limits for oil and gas exploration for now, while planning fresh lease sales in areas already under development.

In its first major oil-lease announcement since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that began last April and ended in September, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the oil and gas industry already holds about 29 million acres of offshore leases in undeveloped areas where it⤠s now allowed to explore for new sources of fossil fuel.

Post-Copenhagen, a Cancun compromise?

There are lowered expectations as the world tries to agree modest steps to rein in global warming at U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico.

Salazar canceled plans first disclosed in March to allow some oil and gas leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, since many of those regions now fall under a congressional moratorium against offshore drilling, he said.

Areas in the mid and south Atlantic, “are no longer under consideration for potential development through 2017,” the administration said.

The U.S. delayed lease sales from March in the western and central Gulf of Mexico but will still hold an auction by the end of next year or early 2012, he said.

The Cook Inlet and the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in the Arctic will continue to be considered for potential leasing before 2017. One proposal from Royal Dutch Shell /quotes/comstock/13*!rds.a/quotes/nls/rds.a (RDS.A 62.29, +1.62, +2.67%) Â for an exploratory well in the region remains under consideration, he said.

⤦As a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill we learned a number of lessons, most importantly that we need to proceed with caution and focus on creating a more stringent regulatory regime,”said Salazar. “As that regime continues to be developed and implemented, we have revised our initial March leasing strategy to focus and expend our critical resources on areas with leases that are currently active.”

The decision drew a critical response from the American Petroleum Institute, a leading lobbying group for the oil and gas industry.

The group said the move, “shuts the door on new development off our nation’s coasts and effectively ensures that American jobs will not be realized.”
Steve Gelsi is a reporter for MarketWatch in New York.

Special thanks to Richard Charter