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

by JOHN M. BRODER
Published: October 12, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Interior Department formally cited BP and its two chief contractors on Wednesday for numerous safety and environmental violations in the operation of the doomed Deepwater Horizon well.

The citations, which could lead to millions of dollars in fines, arose from an investigation of the April 2010 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the worst offshore oil spill in American history. The department and the Coast Guard found in a report issued last month that BP, Transocean and Halliburton had failed to operate the Gulf of Mexico drilling rig in a safe and responsible manner, had heedlessly endangered their workers, had not followed proper well control procedures and had not properly maintained safety equipment, including the blowout preventer.

“The joint investigation clearly revealed the violation of numerous federal regulations designed to protect the integrity of offshore operations,” said Michael R. Bromwich, head of the department’s offshore safety office. “To ensure the safe and environmentally responsible conduct of offshore operations, companies that violate federal regulations must be held accountable.”

The actions against Transocean, which operated the drilling rig, and Halliburton, which performed the well cementing job, are the first time that the government has cited contractors rather than just a well’s principal owner, in this case BP, for safety violations. The government considers all three parties responsible for the disaster, although the degree of liability will be decided in pending legal actions.

The companies have 60 days to appeal the citations.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/bp-faces-fierce-backlash-from-green-groups-over-new-oil-well-2369714.html

Campaigners warn that wildlife at Shetland site would be at ‘significant risk’ from any spill

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Thursday, 13 October 2011

BP’s plan for a controversial deep-water oil well off Shetland should be halted by the Government, four of Britain’s biggest green groups said last night.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Friends of the Earth urged the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, to refuse consent for the oil giant’s proposed North Uist well as any spill from it would pose a “significant risk to wildlife” in one of the UK’s most environmentally sensitive areas.

In a joint letter to Mr Huhne, the groups’ leaders expressed anger that none of them had been made aware of BP’s “public consultation exercise” about the well – which ended last week without a single response from the public – and raised concerns about the difficulty of coping with a deep-water oil leak in the hostile conditions of the North Atlantic.

The Independent disclosed yesterday that BP’s own worst-case scenario for a spill from North Uist, to be drilled at 1,290 metres, or 4,230ft, below the surface, would involve oil leaking at 75,000 barrels a day for 140 days. This would constitute the worst oil spill in history and one more than twice the size of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico last year that brought the oil giant to the brink of collapse.

BP admits that in the event of a spill, the Shetland Islands – home to the UK’s richest seabird breeding grounds, with more than a million birds present in summer – “may be affected.”

Last night’s letter to Mr Huhne was from Mike Clarke, chief executive of the RSPB; Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland; Stan Blackley, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland; and John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK.

The case for drilling the well is now being examined by Mr Huhne’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, which can give or refuse approval.

The four leaders wrote to the minister: “We strongly urge you to refuse consent for this proposed well. It is less than two years since BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the lessons from this terrible incident are yet to be learned and applied.

“Allowing deep water drilling off Shetland is dangerous and could be very polluting. We believe there is a significant risk to wildlife and protected areas, both around the UK and beyond, from an oil spill that could result from BP drilling this well.”

The green leaders also said they were “very disappointed” with BP’s consultation process, “which we believe was wholly inadequate, particularly in its failure to proactively engage with key stakeholders such as ourselves”.

The comment reflects anger at the perception that BP deliberately tried to bypass potential objectors to the well by giving the consultation exercise very little publicity. None of the groups, who all could be considered prime stakeholders, knew it existed until they saw yesterday’s Independent.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/12/cuba-oil-idUSN1E7930U020111012

* Delay the latest of many in long-awaited project

Wed Oct 12, 2011 5:22pm EDT

* Opponents fear oil will prop up Cuba communism
* Project has raised environmental fears in Florida

By Jeff Franks
HAVANA, Oct 12 (Reuters) – The arrival of a Chinese-built drilling rig set to explore for oil in Cuban waters has been delayed again and is not expected to reach the island until the second half of December, sources close to the project said.

The delay is the latest of many as communist-run Cuba awaits the start of a project it hopes will give a shot in the arm to its struggling economic system.

The massive Scarabeo 9, which set sail from Singapore in late August, had been expected in Cuba by early November, but was slowed by problems not unusual for a newly built rig going to its first drilling operations, people close to the project said this week.

The late December arrival means the first well, to be sunk in 5,600 feet (1,700 metres) of water off Cuba’s northern coast, may not be started until January, the sources said.

They warned that further delays were possible as the rig makes its journey halfway around the world after it was built in Yantai, China, and completed in Singapore. It was said to be currently off the coast of West Africa, although reports about its location varied.

Cuba had hoped to begin exploring for oil in its part of the Gulf of Mexico several years ago, but the project has been put off by construction delays and other issues.

The high-tech rig belongs to Saipem, the offshore unit for Italy’s Eni SpA, and has been contracted by Spain’s Repsol YPFfor the Cuba project, which is the island’s first major exploration offshore.

It will be used to drill at least three wells, two by Repsol in a consortium with Norway’s Statoila unit of India’s ONGC, and another by Malaysia’s Petronas in partnership with Russia’s Gazprom Neft.

After that, plans for the project, which has been cloaked in secrecy, are not clear, but may depend on the success of the first three wells, a diplomatic source said.

If oil is found, it will take at least three years to begin production, said the local manager for one of the companies involved.

BALM FOR CUBAN ECONOMY

Cuban officials have not said much publicly about the offshore exploration, but make it clear in private conversations that oil would help their troubled economy.

Opponents of the Cuban government fear oil will be the salvation of the communist system, which President Raul Castro is trying to preserve with economic reforms. But that will depend in part on how much oil, if any, is found.

Cuba has said it may have 20 billion barrels of oil in its 43,000 square miles (111,370 square km) of the Gulf of Mexico, while the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated 5 billion barrels, the figure more broadly accepted in the oil world.

Cuba oil expert Jorge Pinon, a former president of Amoco Oil in Latin America who is now at Florida International University, said the most likely prospect if oil were found was that it would be a field closer to the USGS estimate.

Owing to the fields and the probability they contain heavier oil, he thinks only 30 percent to 40 percent of the reserves can be produced.

“If they find 5 billion barrels, you take 40 percent of that and it’s 2 billion barrels,” Pinon said.

The contracts with international partners call for Cuba to get 60 percent of the oil, which based on a 25-year reservoir life, would equate to about 131,000 barrels a day.

That amount may or may not assure the survival of the Cuban system, experts said, but would bring solid economic and political benefits, including a better balance sheet for the cash-strapped island and oil independence.

Cuba now gets 92,000 barrels a day from socialist ally Venezuela to help meet internal demand, but Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is battling cancer, raising questions about how much longer the program will last.

The Cuban wells have raised environmental concerns because they will be about 60 miles (96 km) from Florida, twice as close to the state as drillers are allowed in U.S. waters.
A blowout like BP experienced last year off the coast of Louisiana could douse both Cuba and Florida with oil.

To alleviate concerns, Repsol will follow through on an offer it made to invite U.S. Coast Guard officials to inspect the rig when it reaches Trinidad and Tobago, sources said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter