http://www.chron.com/business/article/Lawmakers-with-Cuban-roots-blast-offshore-2249368.php

I have to agree that drilling so close to Key West is madness. How did we get into this mess? Its time to end the embargo… DV

By JENNIFER A. DLOUHY, WASHINGTON BUREAU
Updated 07:45 p.m., Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement–the federal offshore energy regulator, speaking to the Houston Chronicle Editorial board, Friday, Feb. 11, 2011, in Houston. ( Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle ) Photo: Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle

Ileana Ros-Lehtinenof Florida is the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Michael Bromwichconcedes that the U.S. inspection of a rig will be con-strained.

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan group of lawmakers with Cuban roots on Wednesday blasted the Obama administration for not doing more to block oil and gas drilling in Cuban waters.

Instead of working to prevent the drilling, the lawmakers complained, the Interior Department has coordinated with the first of several companies set to explore in the area.

“We are extremely concerned over what seems to be a lack of a coordinated effort by the administration to prevent a state sponsor of terrorism from engaging in risky deep-sea oil drilling projects that will harm U.S. interests as well as extend another economic lifeline to the Cuban regime,” the lawmakers said in a letter to President Barack Obama.

The letter signers included the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., as well as Reps. David Rivera, R-Fla., Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Albio Sires, D-N.J. All are of Cuban descent.

At issue are plans by Repsol, a privately owned Spanish company, to drill an exploratory well in Cuban waters less than 100 miles from the Florida coast as early as December.

U.S. embargo

The U.S. has no say in the company’s drilling or in the Cuban regulations that will govern the work. And America’s power to influence the planned drilling is even more limited because of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which generally bars commerce with the nation and caps the amount of American-made components in offshore drilling vessels and other equipment at 10 percent.

Nevertheless, the Interior Department has used its leverage with Repsol, which has leases to drill in American Gulf waters, to extract a commitment that the company will follow U.S. standards for its Cuban drilling.

Repsol also has agreed to allow Coast Guard and Interior Department inspectors to evaluate the Scarabeo 9 rig that will drill the well, before that vessel crosses into Cuban waters.

“They have an interest in backing up that pledge because they have interests in U.S. waters,” Michael Bromwich, the head of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, told a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Other state-owned oil and gas companies, including Russia’s Gazprom and Malaysia’s Petronas, are planning to search for oil and gas in deep Cuban waters after Repsol finishes its well. But unlike Repsol, none of them holds U.S. drilling leases.

Bromwich said the federal government does not have active plans to reach out to those companies, as it has with Repsol.

The looming Cuban drilling puts the administration in a politically precarious position, angering Cuban-Americans who say the White House is helping the Communist regime by assisting Repsol and at the same time alienating environmentalists, who worry that the trade embargo will block U.S. companies from swiftly responding to any oil spill in the region.

Being pragmatic

Obama administration officials have insisted that they are being pragmatic in working with Repsol to boost the safety of its drilling. Bromwich said he is assuming that Repsol’s drilling is “a given,” so working with the company makes more sense than stepping aside or trying to pressure Repsol to back down.

It “could lead to lots of undesirable developments if we tried to stop activities in waters that don’t belong to us,” Bromwich told reporters. “So we have rejected that alternative and instead have tried to do what we can to protect American interests.”

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., noted that after the Scarabeo 9 enters Cuban waters, it will be off limits to U.S. regulators. “It will be as if it has crossed into a Bermuda triangle of safety,” he said.

Bromwich conceded that the U.S. inspection – expected in December – will be constrained because it will be taking place far from the well site.

“It’s a lot better than nothing,” he said, but “there are certain things – about a dozen things – we will not be able to do.”

Fears of a spill

For instance, U.S. officials will not be able to conduct a test of emergency equipment on the rig as it is deployed at the subsea well.

Environmentalists warn that in case of an oil spill, the trade embargo and bureaucratic red tape could prevent American companies from responding with equipment and assistance.

jennifer.dlouhy@chron.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter
Published: Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Let’s hope that if it were up to the U.S. to determine whether we should drill for oil a few miles downstream from Key West, that the answer would be a resounding NO. DV

Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey today stood up for American companies’ ability to drill for oil — off Cuba.

Calling the long-standing embargo against Cuba the “real moratorium” on drilling, Markey accused Republicans of focusing on a “make-believe” moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico they say has been imposed by the Obama administration. He noted that Cuba’s waters will be open to drilling for the government of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

“I would think my Republican colleagues would rather have this drilling done by Chevron, rather than Chavez,” Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said at a subcommittee hearing.

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said he would not mind seeing U.S. oil majors drilling off Cuba.

“I strongly support putting people back to work in the Gulf, so if U.S. companies were allowed to drill there that would be great,” Bromwich said after leaving a hearing of the Energy and Mineral Resources subpanel. “But that’s not the world we live in.”

Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) contrasted the Obama administration’s decision to assist companies involved in Cuban
drilling with what he said is the slow pace of permits being issued for drilling off Louisiana and Texas.

“We see agencies helping Cuban drilling go forward,” Lamborn said. “I wish there was equal effort to help our own companies to produce in the outer continental shelf.”

He also criticized the Obama administration for failing to send witnesses from the departments of State, Treasury and Commerce, which have been involved in monitoring the Cuban drilling, to testify at the hearing.

Lamborn said the administration’s handling of the Cuban drilling situation indicates a willingness to undermine the embargo against the country.

“There has been growing concern that companies will be allowed to expand their engagement with Cuba and that this administration will weaken the U.S. embargo on Cuba, a state sponsor of terror,” Lamborn said.

Cuba is working with Spanish company Repsol to begin drilling a well in its waters before the end of the year. American lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced opposition to the plan to drill up to 16 wells, but the project is beyond the reach of U.S. regulators.

Because of that, Bromwich said the administration decided to engage Repsol, rather than isolating or punishing companies that deal with drilling in Cuba.

“The administration made a conscious decision that’s not the responsible course of action to try to stop activity in waters that
don’t belong to us,” Bromwich told reporters.

Several lawmakers have proposed legislation that would penalize foreign companies for working with Cuba.

But Democratic Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey said the hearing was held to air “fears rather than facts” and ignored the implications of other countries’ moves to produce oil from the Arctic seafloor.

“There’s a black gold rush,” Holt said. “The United States is sitting on the sidelines.”

Under friendly questioning by Holt, Bromwich offered mild criticism of the CEOs of the companies involved in last year’s deadly explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico — BP PLC, Transocean Ltd., Halliburton Co. and Cameron International Corp. — for their refusal to testify at a hearing of the committee this afternoon (E&E Daily, Nov. 2).

“With the litigation they are facing, I understand their decision, but I’m disappointed by their position,” Bromwich said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://bernews.com/2011/10/bermuda-oil-rig-cited-in-reef-disaster/

Bernews

October 25, 2011 ·

Recent undersea pictures and video have shown that conditions in Indonesia’s Timor Sea have deteriorated at an alarming rate, largely caused by a catastrophic 2009 oil spill which occurred following an accident on an oil rig owned by a Bermuda company.

Australian and Indonesian experts claimed this week that around 158,000 acre of coral reefs in the Sawu Sea had been destroyed by both the oil spill and chemical substances used to submerge the oil. In addition, coastal people in East Nusa Tenggara have reported suffering from “strange diseases.”

On August 21, 2009, an oil field off the northern coast of Western Australia and in Indonesia’s Timor Sea experienced a blowout at a wellhead platform, causing a large oil and gas leak which is considered one of Australia’s worst oil disasters. The rig, owned by the Norwegian-Bermudian Seadrill and operated by PTTEP Australasia [PTTEPAA], continued to leak for 74 days until it was capped on November 3, 2009.

According to the Australian Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, the Montara oil spill was leaking as much as 2,000 barrels a day. Reports indicate over 10.5 million gallons of crude oil was spilled into Australian waters, which reached Indonesia’s seas through natural currents.

Over 43,500 square miles of sea in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province were eventually polluted. The Australian government later informed that an inquiry revealed that PTTEPAA’s failure to carry out standard operating procedures caused the oil spill.

PTTEPAA previously stated that the oil spills in Timor Sea were small and do not affect the local people environmentally, socially and economically. However, Australian and Indonesian environmental activists insist the damage is self-evident, calling for a thorough study that would also show the cost of he damage from the spill.

Last September, Indonesian Environment Minister Mohammad Gusti Hatta urged the Government of Australia to sign a compensation payment agreement related to the oil spill, which has already been postponed on two occasions.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.chron.com/business/article/BP-gets-OK-to-drill-new-deep-water-well-2238092.php

By JENNIFER A. DLOUHY, WASHINGTON BUREAU
Published 06:45 p.m., Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., right, accompanied by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011, to discuss the BP oil spill. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg) Photo: Harry Hamburg / FR170004 AP

Rep. Ed Markeyfears a lack of deterrence for drillers.

WASHINGTON – The federal government on Wednesday gave BP approval to launch its first deep-water drilling since the lethal blowout of its Macondo well a year and a half ago.

Under the permit issued by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the British oil giant immediately can begin drilling at its Kaskida field about 192 miles off the Louisiana coast.

Although BP has partnered with other firms on offshore work since the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 people and triggered the nation’s worst oil spill, this is the first time it is being allowed back in the water as the lead operator of an offshore drilling project.

The permit is a milestone for BP and the entire offshore drilling industry, which is still recovering from last year’s spill and a subsequent moratorium on some deep-water exploration, said Sean Shafer, a senior market analyst with Sugar Land-based Quest Offshore Resources.

“If the Gulf is going to get back to where it is before Š it’d be hard to do it without BP being a part of that,” Shafer said, noting that BP is the largest producer in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP plans to drill the newly approved well in 6,034 feet of water – about 1,000 feet deeper than its doomed Macondo project. Drilling could begin within days using Seadrill’s three-year-old West Sirius semi-submersible rig.

As part of its permit approval, BP vowed to abide by new safety and environmental mandates imposed since last year’s spill, as well as a suite of voluntary performance standards. Those safeguards go beyond federal requirements and include backup emergency equipment and engineer-witnessed testing of cement used in wells.

For instance, BP will use a second set of pipe-cutting shear rams on the blowout preventer that will be used at the new well, doubling opportunities for the device to successfully slash through drill pipe and trap flowing gas and oil underground in case of an emergency. Cameron International, the same Houston-based company that manufactured the blowout preventer used at the Macondo well, built the one installed on the West Sirius rig.

“BP has met all of the enhanced safety requirements that we have implemented and applied consistently over the past year,” said the safety bureau director, Michael Bromwich, in a statement. “In addition, BP has adhered to voluntary standards that go beyond the agency’s regulatory requirements.”

‘Safely drilling’

BP cheered the permit as a “another milestone in our steady return to safely drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.”

But some Democratic lawmakers and environmentalists dismissed BP’s plans as too much too soon. The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee that oversees offshore drilling, Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, suggested BP should be barred from drilling until it has paid oil spill penalties under the Clean Water Act and federal regulations.

“The fact that BP is getting a permit to drill without yet paying a single cent in fines is a disappointment, and does not serve as an effective lesson of deterrence for oil and gas companies,” Markey said.

David Pettit, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said there are still too many questions about the design of blowout preventers that BP and other companies are using.

An examination of the BOP unearthed from the Deepwater Horizon wreckage found that the powerful blind shear rams on the device were unable to completely slash through slightly off-center drill pipe, seal the well hole and trap oil and gas.
$100 billion gamble?

“With blowout preventers, you can have all the shear rams you want, but if that system is capable of being defeated – if the drill pipe doubles over – we’re right back where we were in April 2010,” Pettit said. “Each of these new permits, you could look at as a $100 billion gamble Š that everything is going to work out fine.”

In approving BP’s drilling, regulators also signed off on changes to the company’s plan for responding to any oil spills.

BP estimated in case of an emergency, it would take 184 days to drill a relief well at the site. In the meantime, BP said it could swiftly intervene with a containment system designed to rein in runaway underwater wells. BP has contracted with the Marine Well Containment Company for the equipment.

It was not clear what other contractors would be involved in the project, including which company would be cementing the well. A presidential commission that investigated the spill and a separate federal inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon disaster faulted BP and its contractors for not sharing concerns about risks at the Macondo well.

The Kaskida project is one of BP’s biggest finds ever in U.S. waters; the company estimates that it could hold as much as 3 billion barrels of oil.

Federal regulators have been vetting BP’s application to drill the Kaskida well since January. The permit approval comes less than a week after the Interior Department approved the company’s broad offshore exploration plan for Kaskida, which allows drilling of up to seven wells at the site.

Each well must be permitted individually.

jennifer.dlouhy@chron.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/oct/26/eve-samples-rooneys-offshore-drilling-proposal/

By Eve Samples
Posted October 26, 2011 at 7:05 p.m.

It’s one of Martin County’s greatest political strengths.

When it comes to matters of the environment, Republicans, Democrats and shades in between are known to raise a unified voice.

We hear their chorus rise whenever toxic algae blooms on the St. Lucie River.
And we’re hearing it again as U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney pushes a bill that supports offshore oil and natural gas exploration in Florida’s waters.

Last week, the Republican from Tequesta unveiled a jobs proposal that would broaden the area where the state has authority over drilling (from 3 miles offshore on the east coast of Florida to 12 miles) and dangle a carrot before state lawmakers by promising Florida a percentage of the revenue from drilling leases.

Rooney’s plan also mandates more leases for oil and natural gas drilling in the federally controlled outer continental shelf.

Though passage of the bill is a long shot in this divided Congress, Rooney’s proposal sends a message that he supports drilling off Florida’s coast – despite a two-decade-old state ban on the practice.

That is not sitting will with elected officials including Charles Falcone, a town commissioner for Jupiter Island.

“I just think that Florida best serves its residents, its millions of residents, with a ban on offshore drilling,” Falcone, a registered Independent, told me.

“I’m just very disappointed with Congressman Rooney on this point,” he added.
It should be noted that, even if he could get his jobs bill passed, Rooney doesn’t have the power to lift Florida’s ban on drilling.

That’s something that the state Legislature would have to do – something it almost did in 2009 when the House voted to lift the ban. The Senate never followed suit, but legislative leaders have suggested they would be open to considering it in the future. Gov. Rick Scott has consistently supported the idea.

Rooney’s proposal would give the state financial incentive to lift the ban.

That’s a slap in the face to the elected commissions of Martin County, Jupiter Island, Sewall’s Point and Stuart – all of which have passed resolutions opposing offshore oil and natural gas drilling.

Sewall’s Point Mayor Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch doesn’t understand why Rooney wouldn’t take those local opinions into account.

“Do we pass these resolutions just for fun and then forget about them?” Thurlow-Lippisch, also an Independent, asked.

For his part, Rooney points to a need to reduce the high cost of fuel – even though it’s questionable whether drilling in Florida’s waters would actually reduce gas prices at the pump.

In a statement his spokesman emailed me Wednesday, Rooney said: “I share my constituents’ concern for Florida’s environment, and I want to make sure that energy is produced in Florida or off our shores as safely as possible. I’m also adamant that Florida receive its share of revenue from drilling.”

We heard similar pledges about safety before last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
George Jones, head of the Indian Riverkeeper, a nonprofit advocacy group, also opposes Rooney’s plan. He doesn’t think it will do much to create jobs in Florida.

“It’s just a bad proposal all the way around for a state whose economy depends on clean air and clean water,” said Jones, who is a Republican.

Jones and Thurlow-Lippisch also were disappointed when Rooney tried to kill new water-quality regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. They would rather see Rooney embrace Everglades restoration as an economic engine.

A study commissioned by the nonprofit Everglades Foundation projects that every $1 spent on Everglades restoration generates a $4 return. It also says executing the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan would create 442,000 jobs over 50 years – in fishing, tourism, construction and other industries.

“I happen to think that there’s ways that we should be fiscally responsible,” Jones said. “But we don’t need to do it on the backs of all the folks who need clean air and clean water.”

Eve Samples is a columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. This column reflects her opinion. For more on Martin County topics, follow her blog at TCPalm.com/samples. Contact her at 772-221-4217 or eve.samples@scripps.com.

Special thanks to Richard Charter