http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/18/v-fullstory/2460190/us-admits-limits-in-monitoring.html

BY ERIKA BOLSTAD
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON — As exploratory oil drilling is set to begin in December off the coast of Cuba, the U.S. government acknowledged Tuesday that because of chilly diplomatic relations it could have a limited ability to control the response to an oil spill there, let alone one the magnitude of last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. regulators said their main leverage to encourage safe drilling practices in Cuba is with the oil company doing the first round of offshore exploration in the communist country: Spain’s Repsol.

Because of its other extensive U.S. interests, Repsol is likely to exercise caution in a project less than 100 miles from the Florida coastline, said Michael Bromwich, director of the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which is within the Department of the Interior.

Repsol’s wide U.S. interests have likely “played a significant role in why they’ve been as cooperative as they have,” Bromwich told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday morning.

Bromwich also said the company has pledged publicly that it will adhere to U.S. regulations and the highest industry standards while working in Cuban waters. The company has given U.S. regulators permission to inspect the rig it will be using, Bromwich said, although that inspection would have to be done before it enters Cuban waters. The agency, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, already has participated in a mock response drill at Repsol’s facilities in Trinidad.

Regulators have made it clear they expect the company “to adhere to industry and international environmental, health and safety standards and to have adequate prevention, mitigation and remediation systems in place in the event of an incident,” Bromwich said.

But others at the hearing warned that spilled oil knows no political boundaries – or embargoes. And while Congress is most curious about Cuba because of the limited information available about the country’s plans, other Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico neighbors also are exploring for oil near U.S. waters. They include Jamaica, the Bahamas and ongoing operations in Mexico.

“If we just kind of close our eyes to it here, and say, ‘It’s not going to happen here,’ we’re fooling ourselves,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the committee’s top Republican. “If there is a spill, the impact doesn’t necessarily stop at our borders.”

How U.S. companies are allowed to respond to any potential spill in Cuban waters could be vital in protecting Florida and the Bahamas, said Paul Schuler, the president and CEO of Clean Caribbean and Americas, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based oil-spill response consortium funded by oil companies. He called for a “loosening up” of the red tape required for U.S.-based companies to have any sort of involvement with Cuba’s communist government.

Schuler’s organization, which responded to the 2010 BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has been involved in Cuba since 2001, when Repsol and Brazil’s Petrobras were first doing work there.

Clean Caribbean and Americas applied for and received licenses from the Treasury and Commerce departments to travel to and export equipment to Cuba. Company officials also have been to Cuba recently to work with Repsol and Petronas, the state-owned Malaysian oil company also exploring in Cuba, Schuler said.

One of the foremost experts in Cuba’s oil-drilling capabilities, Jorge Pinon, warned the committee that the United States shouldn’t bully Repsol, which is not the only oil company to explore in Cuban waters.

Pinon pointed out that the United States doesn’t have the leverage with state-owned entities like Petronas that it does with publicly traded companies with U.S. interests, such as Repsol.

“Mexico, Cuba and the Bahamas are in the process of implementing the most advanced and up-to-date drilling regulations and standards,” said Pinon, a former Amoco executive and a visiting research fellow with Florida International University’s Latin American and Caribbean Center’s Cuban Research Institute. “But do they have the resources, capabilities, assets, personnel and experience to enforce them? Can these countries’ regulatory agencies appropriately police the operators? These are issues for debate.”

Some Republican lawmakers have complained in the past about Cuba’s ability to drill so close to the U.S. coastline even as a 125-mile buffer zone remains in place in U.S. waters off of most of Florida’s coast. Tuesday, those questions came up again.

“Why not drill there?” asked Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Bromwich told Corker the agency would be going forward with lease sales in the western Gulf of Mexico in December, and in the central Gulf in May or June.

And lawmakers from both parties remain concerned about Repsol’s involvement in Cuba. In September, 34 lawmakers led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., asked Repsol in a letter to keep out of Cuban waters, saying the firm’s pending offshore drilling plans would support the Castro regime and “bankroll the apparatus that violently crushes dissent.”

Ros-Lehtinen also has introduced legislation that would deny U.S. visas to non-citizens who’ve worked in Cuba’s oil drilling industry. The bill also would impose sanctions and other penalties on people and entities who invest in the development of Cuba’s petroleum resources.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/havana_fit_over_cuba_oil_drilling_kXtn49UB9SjNODrYo90gDN

Finally, a public announcement of concern by the Obama administration, although I know they have been working behind the scenes for a while on this issue……..DV

By JOSH MARGOLIN
Last Updated: 7:11 AM, October 17, 2011
Posted: 2:25 AM, October 17, 2011

EXCLUSIVE

It’s a sure-fire recipe for disaster — Cuban oil mixing with Florida’s waters.
The Obama administration is frantically gearing up for the start of Cuba’s controversial off-shore oil drilling in December, worried that a spill would create an environmental catastrophe for Florida’s coastline, officials told The Post.

Adding to US concerns over a possible BP-like disaster for Florida is the lack of relations between the federal government and Cuba’s Communist regime — which would make the United States’ ability to prevent or deal with such an accident even more difficult, the officials said.

“People are crazy over this. It’s a very big problem,” said an Obama administration source. “They’re talking about drilling off Cuba, but the way currents flow, the oil would hit Florida.”

Federal and environmental authorities have been huddling behind closed doors for months to come up with a plan for dealing with the start of the drilling — some of which could occur just 50 miles off Florida’s shore.

Cuba is currently awaiting the arrival of its first oil platform from Singapore before starting to drill.

The Spanish company Respol will operate the rig — the first of many — in Cuban waters in the Florida Straits due south of Florida.

Tomorrow, the Obama administration is scheduled to brief Congress on its plan to deal with the tense issue — as memories of the massive BP spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico last year are still looming large in everyone’s minds.

The State Department has taken the lead in assembling the plan — but officials in the departments of Homeland Security and the Interior and the Coast Guard and the EPA have also been wringing their hands over the issue.

The groups’ talks come months after the Obama administration OK’d the resumption of deep-water drilling in parts of the Gulf off the US coast after the Louisiana disaster.

But the United States has never allowed domestic offshore oil rigs in its own waters off Florida’s coastline, in large part because of concerns that an accident or pollution could wreak havoc with the state’s valued tourism industry, including the environmentally sensitive Everglades.

But now Florida will face that very threat, because Cuba’s cash-strapped dictatorship is eager to tap into — and profit from — what could be up to 20 billion barrels of petroleum spread under 43,000 square miles of ocean floor.

“We’re worried, from an environmental standpoint, because Florida’s waters are environmentally sensitive . . . Everyone’s very concerned about the Keys and Everglades,” said Jeff Tittel, a senior official with the Sierra Club.

“For [Cuba], this is a big economic boom. And they don’t get the pollution [threat],” Tittel said.

To deal with a spill that could threaten Florida — and possibly waters as far up the coast as North Carolina — US officials could theoretically let Cuba or its drilling partners tap into a $1 billion fund the United States maintains to deal with such accidents. But hardliners in Congress would be expected to fight against that.

American oil companies actually want to get in on the Cuban drilling themselves, but they need to get the US government’s approval first.

They have argued that they should be allowed to drill off Cuba’s coast because they are best equipped to deal with any potential spills.

But administration officials are stuck politically, because Florida’s influential Cuban-exile community strongly opposes additional economic interaction with Cuba.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Exxon Aims to Bail on Payments for Valdez Damage

-By Kate Sheppard| Thu Oct. 13, 2011 6:34 AM PDT

It’s been more than 22 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped 10 million gallons of crude into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, but you don’t have to look very hard to find lingering impacts from the spill. You can actually still find oil on the shore there, the fisheries are still struggling, and some bird species haven’t recovered. But now Exxon is saying it won’t pay up, despite an agreement to cover those additional cleanup costs.

Five years ago, the US government asked Exxon for money to continue the cleanup effort there. In its latest court filing, Exxon appears to be trying to shirk its obligation to pay for additional damages. In its filing to the US District Court in Alaska on September 30, the company argues that the agreement it reached with the government only covers “restoration” work-not additional “clean-up.”

Before we get furter into the details, a quick recap: In 1991, Exxon struck a deal with the government to pay just $900 million in damages over 10 years for cleanup costs. The deal allowed the government to reopen the case, if it could prove that there were remaining problems that had not been adequately addressed. That “reopener” clause only extended until September 2006. So when that date rolled around and there was still evidence of that habitat and species were directly impacted by the spill, the Department of Justice and the State of Alaska filed a claim asking Exxon for an additional $92 million payment.

Exxon has so far rebuffed their claim. In the company’s latest court filing, it argues that the original agreement “makes clear that the parties limited the Reopener to ‘restoration projects,’ that ‘restoration’ is something separate from and in addition to ‘clean-up.'” The agreement, the company argues, “ended Exxon’s further obligations for ‘clean-up’ once and for all.”

Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice doesn’t seem all that concerned about making Exxon pay up anytime soon. The department’s own filing to the court argues that it’s premature for Exxon to argue about whether or not they have to cover a specific type of restoration project, because scientists are still studying the situation anyway. The filing does note, however, that government officials have found that oil in the Sound has “been degrading at a far slower rate than was anticipated at the time the Parties entered into the Consent Decree and had remained toxic and available to natural resources, such as sea otters and harlequin ducks which use these intertidal habitats.” In other words, there are still problems up there that need to be addressed, and that will cost money.

Rick Steiner, a retired University of Alaska marine biologist who spent 14 years working in the Prince William Sound, has filed his own brief in the case, hoping to push DOJ to actually make Exxon pay up. But, he says, the agreement was “a sweetheart deal from day one,” setting the price for Exxon relatively low and making it difficult, from the start, for the government to seek additional payment. “It’s absolutely maddening,” Steiner says. “None of the parties, US or Exxon, has the public interest in mind.”

A DOJ spokesman declined to comment because the court case is ongoing. But for Steiner-and probably many others-the Exxon situation raises questions about how serious the DOJ will be when it comes time to make BP pay up for the most recent catastrophic spill.

Kate Sheppard covers energy and environmental politics in Mother Jones’ Washington bureau. For more of her stories, click here. She Tweets here. Get Kate Sheppard’s RSS feed.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/rena-crisis/5791702/This-should-be-a-wake-up-call

ROB STOCK AND LOIS CAIRNS
Last updated 05:00 16/10/2011

IAIN MCGREGOR/Fairfax NZ
SHIP OF FUELS: The Rena spill has killed more than 1000 birds already.

As authorities struggle with the environmental devastation of the Rena oil leaks, the government is pushing ahead with plans to tout New Zealand’s offshore oil resources to overseas buyers.

The grounding of the cargo ship Rena has raised questions about New Zealand’s ability to cope with a major oil spill, but the government is planning an international marketing campaign to boost offshore oil and gas exploration over the next three years.

The Ministry of Economic Development plans to appoint a provider this year to identify – and market to – exploration companies around the world ahead of block licensing next year. Promotional workshops in London, Singapore and Houston are part of the plan.
Acting Energy Minister Hekia Parata told the Sunday Star-Times the government was committed to realising the potential of New Zealand’s petroleum basins.

“New Zealand is blessed with an abundance of energy resources and the government wants to use those resources in an environmentally safe way to secure our energy future, and to lift our standard of living,” said Parata, who is acting minister while Gerry Brownlee handles earthquake recovery in Christchurch.

Last year petroleum was our fourth-biggest export, contributing more than $2 billion to the economy, but addressing concerns raised since the Rena’s grounding, Parata said the exploration industry was stable, with reputable, responsible players.

“Oil and gas companies have emergency response plans in place as a matter of good business practice,” she said.

For its part, the government had introduced legislation based on the world’s best practice to apply in the exclusive economic zone, and had also established a high-hazards unit of eight inspectors for the petroleum industry.

But Green Party marine issues spokesman Gareth Hughes said the government needed to call a halt to its marketing campaign and rethink allowing more offshore oil exploration.
“It’s irresponsible for the government to be pushing ahead…given the current oil crisis affecting the Bay of Plenty,” he said.

“The spill should have been a wake-up call.”

The government was being blinded by the potential economic gains and was ignoring the risks.

“It’s irresponsible given that Kiwis will face 100% of the environmental risk, yet the taxpayer will get less than 4% of any financial benefits from oil drilling,” Hughes said.
“Before anyone thinks about more deep sea oil permits, or even test wells, we need an urgent inquiry into Maritime New Zealand’s response to the Rena.

“It has two investigations into the grounding but we need the government to commit to an investigation into our response. Was it up-to-scratch, did we have the necessary resources, why did it take so long?

“Kiwis have got to have faith in our government’s ability to cope with any oil spills, whether they be from vessels or drilling, before we embark on what is a very risky strategy for economic development.”

Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel said that since the Rena spill, thousands of New Zealanders had signed the organisation’s No New Oil petition, and the total number of signatures now stood at almost 90,000.

“People are looking at the government’s proposals for deep-sea oil drilling with fresh eyes,” Abel said.

“They can see the obvious – that if we can’t deal with a leak of thousands of litres in 100 metres of water just offshore, how could we possibly hope to deal with a leak of millions of litres at depths of thousands of metres?

“The cost to our economy and livelihoods could amount to billions if a major spill struck our precious coastal waters, and it’s simply not worth the risk.”

Last year, BP’s Deepwater Horizon well disgorged 780 million litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over three months, devastating wildlife, local fishing and tourism. The extreme drilling depth was the main reason it took so long to stop the leak.

Here the government has already issued permits for exploratory drilling on the east coasts of both the North and South Islands at depths even greater than Deepwater Horizon.

“Two years ago New Zealanders stood up to see off plans to open our best conservation land for mining,” Abel said.

“Now we need to stand up and stop deep sea oil exploration because our oceans and coastlines are too valuable.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/14/2454027/bahamas-oil-drilling-could-begin.html

A year after the BP spill, drilling discussion on the rise

By David Goodhue
dgoodhue@keysreporter.com

As state, local and federal officials brace for a major offshore drilling operation to begin between Cuba in Key West in December, another exploratory well may be drilled a year later in the Bahamas.

The Bahamian and Cuban governments on Oct. 3 signed an agreement delimiting the two nations’ maritime borders after nearly 40 years of negotiations. The move cleared a major obstacle in the way of the Bahamas’ oil exploration goals since leases identified for their potential oil finds are near Cuban waters.

“Without the agreed border between the Bahamas and Cuba, there would be some uncertainty as to who actually owned the licenses,” Paul Gucwa, chief operating officer of the Bahamas Petroleum Co., told The Reporter in an email.

BPC is looking to partner with a major oil company to explore one of its four wells southwest of the Bahamas’ Andros Island. This would place yet another major drilling operation less than 200 miles from Florida’s coast.

A giant Italian-owned, Chinese-made semi-submersible oil rig is expected to begin drilling 6,000 feet below the surface in the Florida Straits in December. The Spanish oil company Repsol will be the first of nearly a dozen foreign energy companies to use the Scarabeo 9 rig to search for oil about 60 miles away from Key West.

Gucwa said the BPC plans to “spud” its first well in December 2012. The Bahamian government has a moratorium on granting new exploration licenses, but Jorge Piñon, a senior research associate at the University of Miami, said that could change following the country’s May 2012 general elections. Piñon will discuss Cuba’s offshore energy plans at the Florida Keys EcoSummit in Key West on Nov. 3.

The Bahamas Petroleum Co. has contacted 10 major international oil companies about partnering in its oil exploration operations. Gucwa would not disclose the names, but said seven companies have visited BPC’s offices in Nassau.

Bahamian business leaders are pushing lawmakers in that country to ease restrictions on oil and natural gas exploration as a way to reduce the nation’s $4-billion-plus national debt, according to the Bahamian newspaper The Tribune.

The moratorium on new licenses was put in place following the 2010 DeepWater Horizon Macondo disaster that spilled millions barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico.

Gucwa said a similar type of spill could not happen in the Bahamas. In the Gulf of Mexico, the sediments consist of rapidly deposited sands and shales. As the sediments are quickly buried, water often times cannot escape and high and abnormal pressure develops.

The sediments in the Bahamas, Gucwa said, are carbonates that precipitate from sea water and are deposited “quite slowly.”

“It’s uncommon for high pressure to develop in these environments,” Gucwa said.

For more Keys news, go to KeysNet.com

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/14/2454027/bahamas-oil-drilling-could-begin.html#ixzz1amL9XFm9
Special thanks to Craig Quirolo