#Offshore drilling

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

President Joe Biden moved on Monday to block future oil and natural gas drilling and protect around 625 million acres of U.S. ocean, including the entire East Coast offshore as well as some areas off the West Coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea. “My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a  statement. “It is not worth the risks. … Now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren.”

Biden is doing this under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, making the move harder for President-elect Donald Trump to reverse. Revoking the action would require congressional approval. “Our treasured coastal communities are now safeguarded for future generations,” Joseph Gordon, campaign director for the environmental nonprofit Oceana, said in a statement. Predictably, the oil and gas industry had a different take. Biden’s move was “significant and catastrophic,” said Ron Neal, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America Offshore Committee, an industry lobbying group.

And while Axios reports that most of the areas under the new protection “are locations that the oil and gas industry had not shown strong interest in for development,” the Trump team is still acting very exasperated about the whole affair.

Biden’s ban was “a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices,” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told media outlets. “Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill." "It's ridiculous,” Trump said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” on Monday. “I'll unban it immediately. I will unban it. I have the right to unban it immediately.” How he plans to “unban” this, though, is not yet known. The Biden administration has spent considerable time “Trump-proofing” its domestic accomplishments. This includes moving to push through aid for Ukraine before they fall under the incoming Trump administration’s discretion. 

President Joe Biden protects coastal communities by banning offshore drilling along the entire East Coast offshore as well as some areas off the West Coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea.

[saywhat-politics]

Donald Trump's spokeswoman has said that President Joe Biden's move to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S coastal waters is "disgraceful."

"This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices," Karoline Leavitt wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

"Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill."

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the Anchorage Daily News:

A federal judge on Tuesday overturned a 2022 lease sale held in Cook Inlet’s federal waters southwest of Anchorage.

The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason sides with conservation groups who had argued that the environmental review leading to the sale was inadequate. The groups argued that the government did not fully analyze the impacts of potential oil and gas activity from the lease sale to Cook Inlet’s endangered beluga whales, among other shortcomings.

Gleason also suspended the single lease acquired by an oil company in the sale until the deficiencies are fixed, according to the 49-page decision released Tuesday.

The Interior Department held the lease sale in December 2022, offering nearly 1 million acres of federal waters in Cook Inlet to companies for potential oil and gas drilling.

Hilcorp acquired the lone tract in the auction for $64,000, out of 193 tracts offered. Though natural gas from Cook Inlet is the primary source of heat and electricity in Southcentral Alaska, lease sales in state and federal waters over many years have generally sparked little to no interest.

The lease sale was mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden in 2022, after the Biden administration had initially canceled the auction, citing a lack of industry interest. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a former Democrat who registered as an independent this spring, had insisted that the provision be included in the act.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defense Council filed the lawsuit in 2022 with Earthjustice, on behalf of Cook Inletkeeper, Kachemak Bay Conservation Society, and Alaska Community Action on Toxics. The state of Alaska intervened in the case on the side of the federal government.

[gwydionmisha]

Biden should have done this four years ago, but doing it at all adds to things Trump has to remember to undo. Anything that slows Trump even a little is still something, given how lazy he is and the long list of things he has planned.

[panelswithoutpeople]

The Underwater Welder

by Jeff Lemire

[indizombie]

The idea of the erasure, the annihilation, of Palestinians is being clearly articulated by Israeli political and military officials. A US lawyer who has brought a case against the Biden administration for its “failure to prevent genocide”—which is a crime, too—spoke of how rare it is for genocidal intent to be so clearly and publicly articulated. Once they have achieved that goal, perhaps the plan is to have museums showcasing Palestinian culture and handicrafts, restaurants serving ethnic Palestinian food, maybe a Sound and Light show of how lively Old Gaza used to be—in the new Gaza Harbour at the head of the Ben Gurion canal project, which is supposedly being planned to rival the Suez Canal. Allegedly contracts for offshore drilling are already being signed.

Arundhati Roy, ‘Our country has lost its moral compass’, Hindu

[poojagblog-blog]

The global Digital Oilfield Market is expected to reach USD 43.0 billion by 2029 from USD 30.1 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 6.3% during the forecast period according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets™.

[sebastien-iglesias]

Environement design for the musical project "Kids of the Apocalypse" (https://www.kidsoftheapocalypse.com)

[plethoraworldatlas]

Climate action groups are vehemently rejecting the Biden administration's claim that the approval of a new offshore oil terminal—planned to be the largest in the U.S.—is in the "national interest," after the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the project had met several federal requirements and could begin operations by 2027.

The agency's Maritime Administration said last week that Enterprise Product Partners, a Houston-based pipeline company, had been granted a deepwater port license to build the Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) near Freeport, Texas following a five-year federal review process.

The federal government determined the $1.8 billion terminal project had undergone sufficient environmental impact reviews and would overall benefit the country—even as it was projected by the Sierra Club, which has fought SPOT for several years, to emit greenhouse gases equivalent to those of nearly 90 coal-fired power plants.

"The evidence is clear that SPOT would be catastrophic to the climate, wildlife, and frontline communities of the Gulf," said Devorah Ancel, senior attorney with the Sierra Club. "It threatens the future existence of the endangered Rice's whale with a population of less than fifty, and its ozone pollution would compromise the health of thousands of Gulf residents who have endured decades of fossil fuel industry pollution. Make no mistake, SPOT is not in the national interest."

The project is expected to include two pipelines that would carry crude oil to the deepwater port each day, enabling the export of 2 million barrels of crude oil, loaded onto two supertankers at once, daily.

"Nothing about this project is in alignment with Biden's climate and environmental justice goals," said Kelsey Crane, senior policy advocate at Earthworks. "The communities that will be impacted by SPOT have once again been ignored and will be forced to live with the threat of more oil spills, explosions, and pollution. The best way to protect the public and the climate from the harms of oil is to keep it in the ground."

[free-kaze]

Offshore drilling has long been a cornerstone of the global energy industry, powering economies and meeting the world's growing demand for hydrocarbons

[afsana]

Leading Offshore Drilling Companies in UAE - TradersFind

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[faultfalha]

The shadows of West Africa crept closer and closer. Two Borr Drilling Jack-Up rigs spread their wings, hovering in anticipation. The deafening stillness of the night was interrupted only by the whispering of the wind, a sinister warning off what was to come. These two ships had been chosen for a mysterious purpose, leading to a new and unknown destiny. Nothing could prepare them for what lay ahead.

[dsiddhant]

CHICAGO , Aug. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Artificial Lift Market is projected to reach USD 9.0 billion in 2028 from USD 7.3 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 4.4% according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets™.

[rjzimmerman]

Biden to block oil drilling across 625 million acres of U.S. waters. (Washington Post)

Excerpt from this Washington Post story:

President Joe Biden will moveMonday to block all future oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of federal waters — equivalent to nearly a quarter of the total land area of the United States, according to two people briefed on the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public.

The action underscores how Biden is racing to cement his legacy on climate change and conservation in his last weeks in office. President-elect Donald Trump, who has describedhis energy policy as “drill, baby, drill,” is likely to work with congressional Republicans to challenge the decision.

Biden will issue two memorandums that prohibit future federal oil and gas leasing across large swaths of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, the two people said. The oil and gas industry has long prized the eastern Gulf of Mexico in particular, viewing the area as a key part of its offshore production plans.

The move could have the biggest impact in the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for about 14 percent of the country’s crude oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Industry operations there focus on a small sliver of federal waters off Louisiana’s coast.

The decision would have little effect on a stretch of the Atlantic from North Carolina to Florida, where no drilling is underway.There is weak industry interest in the region, and lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about possible oil spills devastating local beaches and tourism.

In fact, Trump imposed a 10-year moratorium on offshore oil exploration off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina when courting voters there during his 2020 campaign. “This protects your beautiful gulf and your beautiful ocean, and it will for a long time to come,” Trump said as he announced the election-year reversal during an appearance at a lighthouse in Florida.

The Northern Bering Sea, off the coast of western Alaska, is home to migrating marine mammals including bowhead and beluga whales, walruses and ice seals, which are hunted by many Alaska Natives. In 2016, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that prohibited oil and gas exploration across more than 112,000 square miles of marine habitat in the Northern Bering Sea and called for tribal comanagement of the protected area.

Biden plans to invoke the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which gives the president broad powers to withdraw federal waters from future leasing. A federal judge ruled in 2019 that such withdrawals cannot be undone without an act of Congress.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, suggested that he would seek to overturn the decision using the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to nullify an executive action within 60 days of enactment with a simple majority vote.

The expected move is “yet another attempt by the Biden administration to undercut the incoming Trump administration and ignore the will of the American people — who decisively voted to reverse this war on American energy,” Lee said in an emailed statement, adding, “Senate Republicans will push back using every tool at our disposal.”

[poojagblog-blog]

Delray Beach, FL, Oct. 30, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global Offshore Support Vessel Market size is expected to grow from USD 25.6 billion in 2024 to USD 36.3 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 7.2% according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets™. An offshore support vessel (OSV) is specially designed to support offshore exploration, drilling, production, and construction activities in the oil & gas industry. These vessels provide a range of services, such as transportation of personnel, equipment and supplies, maintenance and repair, and oil spill response. OSVs are also used for specialized tasks such as platform installation, decommissioning, seismic surveying, providing firefighting, towing, and positioning of drilling rigs and other offshore structures, and subsea construction. These vessels are equipped with dynamic positioning systems to maintain their position in rough seas and are built to withstand harsh offshore conditions. Different types of offshore support vessels are used in offshore oil & gas and offshore wind applications. OSVs play a crucial role in offshore oil & gas and offshore wind farms by enabling safe and efficient operations.