via PLoS ONE Alerts: Ecology by Holly M. Bik et al. on 6/6/12

by Holly M. Bik, Kenneth M. Halanych, Jyotsna Sharma, W. Kelley Thomas
Benthic habitats harbour a significant (yet unexplored) diversity of microscopic eukaryote taxa, including metazoan phyla, protists, algae and fungi. These groups are thought to underpin ecosystem functioning across diverse marine environments. Coastal marine habitats in the Gulf of Mexico experienced visible, heavy impacts following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, yet our scant knowledge of prior eukaryotic biodiversity has precluded a thorough assessment of this disturbance. Using a marker gene and morphological approach, we present an intensive evaluation of microbial eukaryote communities prior to and following oiling around heavily impacted shorelines. Our results show significant changes in community structure, with pre-spill assemblages of diverse Metazoa giving way to dominant fungal communities in post-spill sediments. Post-spill fungal taxa exhibit low richness and are characterized by an abundance of known hydrocarbon-degrading genera, compared to prior communities that contained smaller and more diverse fungal assemblages. Comparative taxonomic data from nematodes further suggests drastic impacts; while pre-spill samples exhibit high richness and evenness of genera, post-spill communities contain mainly predatory and scavenger taxa alongside an abundance of juveniles. Based on this community analysis, our data suggest considerable (hidden) initial impacts across Gulf beaches may be ongoing, despite the disappearance of visible surface oil in the region.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/arctic-oil-drilling-greenpeace-plans-monitor-shell-oil-submarines

Katie Medred | Jun 06, 2012

The notorious environmental group will be keeping a close eye on Shell this summer. Greenpeace plans to launch a “Save the Arctic” tour from Seattle in the coming weeks.
The tour is fronted by the group’s signature vessel the Esperanza. The former Russian issued ice class ship is complete with a warm rainbow paint job and a well meaning crew.

Greenpeace plans to take the Esperanza up the Pacific Coast to Shell’s proposed well sites in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Once in Alaskan waters, Esperanza and her crew plan to camp out and watch the modern “Arctic oil rush” unfold.

Included in the observation project are an undisclosed number of submarines. The group plans to use the craft(s) to monitor and document underwater occurrences during Shell’s off coast exploration.

A Greenpeace representative told Washington State’s Kitsap Sun:
“The crews will be using submarines to document the steep floor and the marine life along with various attributes of the Chukchi Sea. That will be part of a couple-month-long expedition we’re undertaking to document the potential impacts of an oil spill in the Arctic and what Shell is doing up there.”

Despite the “Save the Arctic” tour’s pertinacious attitude the Alaska U.S. District Court has imposed a restriction on how close the group, its ship or sister subs can come to any Shell owned or operated unit.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/400512

Posted on 7 June 2012 – 05:38am

HAVANA (June 7, 2012): Cash-strapped Cuba’s long quest for black gold took another twist on Tuesday with the announcement that a Malaysian firm and Venezuela’s PDVSA will use an advanced oil platform vacated by Spain’s Repsol.

Repsol had been doing exploratory drilling since February offshore not far from Havana, but on May 22 said it had not found oil with the Scarabeo-9, a state-of-the-art US$500,000-a-day platform.

“The Scarabeo-9 platform used in exploratory drilling in the field Jaguey-1X has been moved to the Catoche-1X well area,” said a statement from state oil firm Cupet read out on an official news broadcast.

The new well, “where drilling started May 24,” is operated by a Malaysian firm that is a subsidiary of Petronas “on a risk contract with Cupet in which Russia’s Gastrionet also is taking part.”

Once drilling is complete on the current well, Scarabeo-9 will be moved to an area called Cabo de San Antonio 1X, run by Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the Cupet statement added, without giving dates.

Some studies estimate Cuba has probable reserves of between five and nine billion barrels of oil in its economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Cuban authorities have said their crude reserves are as high as 20 billion barrels.

The country has long suffered from crippling energy dependence.

The Americas’ lone one-party communist state used to depend on the Soviet bloc for cut-rate oil and plunged into economic chaos and blackouts when it was cut off after 1989.
Now Cuba depends on Venezuela – a vital economic and political ally – for most of its oil; any cut to Venezuelan supplies could spell political and economic disaster for Havana.

But if Cuba locks in its energy independence, it could lurch from a cash-poor developing nation into a flush oil exporter overnight, potentially breathing new life into its one-party state.

Cuba’s economic zone in the Gulf is divided into 59 blocs. They include ventures with Repsol (Spain), Hydro (Norway), OVL (India), PDVSA (Venezuela), Petrovietnam, Petronas (Malaysia) and Sonangol (Angola). China and Venezuela have said they intend to help Cuba triple its refining capacity by 2017. – AFP

Reported on: Thu, 07/06/2012 – 9:30am

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Press Release: Judge Barbier, Allow the People to Hold NALCO Accountable!

When: Wednesday, June 13th, 2012, 1:30pm

Where: In front of Hale Boggs Federal Building, 500 Poydras, New Orleans, La.

Why: The deadline for submitting comments, evidence, documents to Judge Carl Barbier, in support of holding Nalco accountable is June 18th. Judge Barbier oversees the plaintiff’s case and settlement against BP. Judge Barbier is to decide whether or not to allow law suits against Nalco to go forward. Nalco is the manufacturer of the toxic dispersant Corexit. Nalco has strong ties to the oil industry. Millions of gallons of the dispersant Corexit have been applied to the Gulf to sink the oil.

We call on Judge Barbier to allow the people to hold Nalco accountable. According to the Material Safety Data Sheet for the Corexit, this dispersant was never tested for its toxicity to humans. In addition, according to numerous independent scientists, the Corexit is highly toxic to marine life. Some studies have shown that the dispersant Corexit makes the oil more toxic. Many families on the Gulf coast have become ill with exposure to the toxic oil mixed with Corexit. The dispersant Corexit is banned in many countries, including Great Britain.

Several groups and individuals in support of holding Nalco accountable will be present to speak to the press and public, including Grandmothers for the Gulf, the Emergency Committee to Stop the Gulf Oil Disaster and others. These same groups and individuals will then deliver petitions, letters, documents and articles to Judge Barbier’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building to present as evidence to support allowing the people to hold Nalco accountable.

For more information, please call 504-231-8789, or 757-642-8607.

References:

Nalco’s ties to the oil industry:

http://www.nalco.com/aboutnalco/history.htm

Dr. Susan Shaw, marine toxicologist, on the toxicity of Corexit mixed with oil:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tedtalks/susan-shaw-the-oil-spills_b_660792.html

A report by Pro Publica on the toxicity of Corexit:

http://www.propublica.org/article/bp-gulf-oil-spill-dispersants-0430

A Grist report by Tom Phillpot on the toxicity of dispersants and the lack of testing of that toxicity for humans:

http://grist.org/article/2010-05-06-use-of-toxic-chemical-dispersants-to-fight-the-oil-spill-a-murky/

Dr. Nancy Kinner, Microbiologist with the University of New Hampshire, on the inadequate protocols for the testing of Corexit and its toxicity to marine life:

An Unsettling Experiment: Dispersants in the Gulf

YouTube – Videos from this email

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/31/cuba-oil-repsol-idUSS1E84R01520120531

Repsol has led Cuba offshore oil exploration

* Likely departure follows dry holes, YPF nationalization
* U.S. embargo, high costs discourage Cuba exploration

Wed May 30, 2012 8:35pm EDT

By Jeff Franks
HAVANA, March 30 (Reuters) – Spanish oil firm Repsol’s likely decision to leave Cuba after its 12-year-long quest for offshore oil produced just two dry holes is a devastating and perhaps irrecoverable blow to the communist island’s oil hopes, experts said on Wednesday.

Its legacy of failure sends a discouraging signal about Cuba to the oil industry and its departure, which is not yet official but looks almost certain, will leave the Caribbean country without the company that has led efforts to explore its waters.

“They’ve been there since 2000, so I believe Repsol has performed over and above the call of duty. No other company I’ve known would have had the staying power Repsol has had,” said Cuba oil expert Jorge Pinon at the University of Texas in Austin.

Cuba says it may have 20 billion barrels of oil in its offshore fields, which offers the promise of ending its chronic economic woes and its dependence on Venezuelan oil.
Under President Hugo Chavez, Cuba’s closest ally, Venezuela ships the island 115,000 barrels a day in an oil-for-services deal, but his battle with cancer and fight for re-election in October have underscored the tenuous nature of the arrangement.

Repsol announced on May 18 that its long-anticipated well in the Florida Straits near Havana had come up dry, which followed its first unsuccessful well in the same general area in 2004. They are only offshore wells drilled in Cuba.

On Tuesday, Repsol chairman Antonio Brufau said at a Madrid news conference it was “almost certain” the company would not drill again in Cuba, where it has spent an estimated $150 million during its 12 years of work.

An official decision should come next week when Repsol meets with its partners in the wells, Norway’s Statoil and India’s ONGC Videsh, an Indian source said.

The withdrawal from Cuba was prompted in part by Repsol’s financial plan to recover from Argentina’s recent nationalization of its former state oil company YPF, purchased by Repsol in 1999.
BEST HOPE

At present, the best hope for Cuba’s offshore oil industry is a recently started well by Malaysia’s state-run Petronas and Russia’s Gazprom Neft about 100 miles (160 km) west of Havana.

They are using the same Chinese-built Scarabeo 9 drilling rig that Repsol contracted from Italian oil services company Saipem.

Another dry hole “could be game over for the Cubans. They’ve already got one strike against them,” said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a Cuba expert at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

Venezuela’s PDVSA is tentatively scheduled to get the Scarabeo 9 next for a well west of the Petronas site.

The rig is being passed around because it is one of the few offshore drilling rigs in the world that does not violate limits on use of U.S. technology under Washington’s longstanding trade embargo against Cuba.

It is supposed to stay in Cuba until July 2013, although it could be shipped out earlier.
Repsol, which first leased Cuban offshore blocks in 2000, used one of the other eligible rigs for its 2004 well, then searched for years to find the Scarabeo 9, which was under construction in China.

It had to wait for the much-delayed completion and delivery of the rig, run the gauntlet of Cuban exile opposition in the United States, allay U.S. environmental concerns about a possible oil spill and struggle through Cuba’s formidable bureaucracy to bring the project to fruition.

It is unlikely that another company would go to such lengths to drill in Cuba, chiefly for economic reasons, Pinon said.

With the high cost of exploration, oil companies prefer to spend their money in places with the known potential for very big oil fields instead of frontier areas like Cuba with unknown prospects, he said.

“Companies leave or stay away from Cuba not because there’s not oil, but because it’s just not big enough (in terms of oil potential),” he said.

While Cuba says it has 20 billion barrels of oil offshore, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates just 5 billion barrels.

Cuba has the added disadvantage of the U.S. embargo, which increases costs by 18 to 22 percent because everything has to be shipped from afar, not the nearby United States, Pinon said.

Despite the problems, Benjamin-Alvarado believes a successful Petronas well could still bring a wave of exploration in Cuban waters.

“There is oil there, it’s just a matter of finding it,” he said. “If you talk to oil people at length, what you understand is that it’s always worth the risk. They are risk-takers for whom nothing ventured is nothing gained.”

(Additional reporting by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi, Svetlana Kovalyova in Milan and Balazs Koranyi in Oslo.; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

Special thanks to Richard Charter