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Economic peril seen from offshore drilling ban
HOUSTON |
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling ban has already cost offshore jobs in a nascent U.S. economic recovery and a lengthy moratorium will put the industry at peril, sector executives said on Wednesday.
Their remarks came a day ahead of a court hearing on the moratorium imposed by the Obama administration, which says it is needed to prevent a repeat of the BP Plc well blowout that brought environmental havoc to the Gulf, polluting beaches, killing wildlife and scaring away tourists.
"We're going to see companies go out of business. We're going to see workers leave this industry," said Louis Raspino, chairman of the International Association of Drilling Contractors and chief executive officer of driller Pride International Inc.
"In a very, very short period of time, we're going to see this industry implode," Raspino said.
His remarks were made at a packed town hall meeting in this oil industry center to discuss the 6-month ban, put into effect after the BP well ruptured in an explosion on April 20 that killed 11, but immediately challenged in court.
While the legal dispute is pending, oil firms are holding up new drilling operations in the Gulf.
Smaller companies in particular cannot afford to lose six months of revenue waiting as the government decides on new regulations to make offshore drilling safer, Raspino said.
The oil drilling industry goes head-to-head with the Obama administration in court on Thursday over the White House effort to suspend deepwater drilling.
Last month, a federal judge ruled against the drilling ban, calling it "arbitrary and capricious." The government appealed, saying the suspension would allow time to probe the spill's cause and ensure other drilling rigs operate safely.
Chad Deaton, chief executive officer of oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc, said at the Houston meeting that his firm is moving workers out of the Gulf of Mexico to jobs in other countries.
"Short-term, we're relocating some of our people on the offshore rigs," Deaton said after the meeting. "Fortunately, activity around the world is fairly strong."
"The blanket moratorium on offshore drilling is the wrong decision," said U.S. Representative Pete Olson, a Republican who represents voters in Houston's suburbs. "The policy is hurting the entire Houston economy and increasing costs for all Americans."
While defending the moratorium decision, the Obama administration is also working on revisions due to be announced shortly to make the ban more flexible for drilling companies.
The moratorium has strong support from environmentalists, and in Brussels the European Union's energy chief said the bloc should consider its own moratorium on new deepwater drilling until a probe into the BP spill is completed.
The Energy Information Agency said on Wednesday the ban would cut 82,000 barrels per day of production next year. The agency sees total U.S. production at more than 5 million BPD.
Houston, home to operations of big oil companies including ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp, is viewed as the world's energy capital.
When Olson asked the room if they knew someone who had lost their job because of the moratorium, a sea of hands went up.
"Those are good American jobs," Olson said.
(Reporting by Anna Driver in Houston; editing by Jerry Norton)
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How about requiring double blowout protection immediately with new regulations to be developed over the coming year? Something moderate to try to correct decades of neglect.
Some folks would love to see $25. per gallon gasoline, but most would not. Why shoot for that on top of everything else?
This is an upward flow against gravity that pulls down. It can be stopped by some easy tricks on fluid dynamics using concepts of surface transport of particles. Bubbling flow upward can be clogged by high density objects coming down by gravity pull.
Instead of doing a junk shot with gulf balls and shredded tires they were supposed to put high density and sinking geometry to clog the well. We do it a lot in Soil Science and the Dust Bowl provides insights on surface transport of particles by erosion regarding detachment, transport, and deposition.
Hydrology is being curbed in the patenting affairs and technological development deeply missing now to solve simple problems like clogging a spilling well.
The use of golf balls in the junk shot is a clear evidence that the experts have no handle on deep Hydrology. I am not surprised since a sort of ‘scientific discovery’ in Hydrodynamics is being constantly violated by lay people as Patent Examiners, Patent Attorneys, and Scientists. Try to find any address of wick/wicking on Hydrology textbooks and you will see that this oil spill is something that could have been stopped on the day ONE if science were respected and honored. USPTO has near 6,000 Patent Examiners and it already confirmed that none of them is a Hydrologist!
This OIL SPILL is a consequence of a bunch of people pretending to be smart overstepping the boundaries of a classic science called HYDROLOGY.
Look at this. Mr. Obama assigned Dr. Regina Benjamin 42 lbs overweight to take care of your health system. A person near obese in the health system that cannot help herself is going to provide Americans insights to shed weight and be healthy. This way Americans are becoming 85% obese by 2040.
I suggested Mr. Obama to resign because my advanced breakthrough ‘scientific discovery’ in Hydrodynamics is being violated by flawed patents that even do not work. Why to ignore science? I already sent Mr. Obama 14 lettters regarding violations of Hydrology getting no reply. My doubt is if people at the White House read English or people around there do not need to care about their country outcome.
Just imagine if the well could be clogged in few hours by appropriate approach making gravity pull heavy objects downward on a bubbling upward flow with variable flow velocity due to the dragging effect of well casing.
The relief wells may not work as clay in the mud can only clog tiny pores but fail on cracks and fissures.
What is the chance that PB hires any Soil Scientist in the technical staff? What is the chance that BP Engineers ever learned about Soil Erosion to understand detachment, transport, and deposition of particles in a dynamic flow?
I believe this entire nightmare is preventable and consequence of a failing leadership you have.
How would I stop the spill?
Easily running some trials with a visible display employing translucent 22 in pipes with similar upward flow and check the dragging effect on many particle sizes and formats. The bubbling effect should increase fall by reducing the fluid density, as well as variable radial flow velocity which is higher in the center and lower around the containment case as a stationary surface.
When we start injecting the junk shot we know what to expect and change the particles sizes and formats as the velocity of spill reduces by the this downward effect from the falling particles. Lower and lower velocity suggests smaller and smaller particles until clay can be used to seal tiny pores inside the well lumen.
What am I charging for it?
I just want USPTO to stop violating my ‘scientific discovery’ US pat. 6,766,817 with flawed patents that even do not work shamefully harming and dishonoring HYDROLOGY. I got PhD at Penn State University and Bill Clinton was the speecher of my commencement on May 10, 1996.
CNN is controlling info by removing comments on its website. I am curious who takes advantages by this ongoing catastrophe.
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