Energy Tomorrow Blog
Revised Well Control Rule Critical to Meet Offshore Challenges
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Mark Green
Posted April 30, 2019
Soon the federal government is expected to release its updated offshore well control rule, one that improves on its 2016 predecessor by providing flexibility to meet specific challenges across a variety of offshore conditions while encouraging innovation and technologies that help improve safety.
We expect that opponents of natural gas and oil development anywhere to attack the updated rule when it’s released. Yet, fact and logic will weigh heavily against them.
Offshore Energy: 10 Key Ways Operations Have Been Strengthened
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Erik Milito
Posted April 17, 2019
With the Trump administration nearing release of a new five-year offshore leasing plan for oil and natural gas, offshore energy has never been safer or stronger – thanks to initiatives and technologies designed to enhance worker safety and protect the environment. (See this post dispelling offshore energy myths.) Below, 10 important developments that have strengthened the vitally important work of harnessing America’s offshore energy.
1. Center for Offshore Safety
The Center for Offshore Safety (COS) is an industry-led initiative to promote continuous safety improvement for offshore drilling, completions and operations through effective leadership, communication, teamwork, disciplined management systems and independent third-party auditing and certification.
Getting the Offshore Drilling Program Right
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Mark Green
Posted May 11, 2016
Some points for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to consider when it meets next week to review the Obama administration’s proposed 2017-2022 program for offshore oil and natural gas leasing.
First, offshore oil and natural gas production historically has played a major role in overall U.S. energy output. In 2010 more than 30 percent of U.S. oil and 11 percent of U.S. natural gas was produced in the Gulf of Mexico. So, while it’s great that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Gulf production will increase to record high levels in 2017, every American must recognize that reaching record Gulf output next year would result because of leasing decisions made a decade or more ago.
In that context, let’s be clear: The federal offshore leasing program must reflect energy leadership and vision, and it must be focused on fostering opportunity. It must not reduce America’s offshore energy potential by keeping key offshore areas off the table for development.
Voters Support Offshore Energy
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Jack Gerard
Posted March 9, 2016
Offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is set to reach a record high next year, according to new projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). By the end of 2017, production is projected to reach 1.9 million barrels per day, accounting for 21 percent of total U.S. crude oil production.
That represents a crucial contribution to America’s energy security, economy and global energy leadership. Imagine if we doubled it. Opening areas in the Atlantic, Pacific and Eastern Gulf of Mexico could lead to production of more than 3.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day – almost twice the amount EIA projects we’ll hit next year in the western Gulf alone.
Public Resources and the Public Good
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Mark Green
Posted June 25, 2015
The U.S. Interior Department is out with its Economic Report for Fiscal Year 2014 – which doesn’t sound like it would be a whole lot of fun reading. But the report actually contains some pretty important bits of information.
For example, you get a clear sense that Interior Department activities support jobs and economic growth, which are good things. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called her department a “powerful economic engine.” More Jewell:
“Our parks and public lands support outdoor recreation, promote renewable energy and allow us to harness other domestic energy resources, create jobs and promote economic development in communities across all 50 states.”
It’s the “other domestic energy resources” that caught our eye.
Taking Stock of America’s Energy Revolution
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Mark Green
Posted May 26, 2015
Reuters: U.S. Republicans have had to watch from the sidelines as the Obama White House has taken political credit for America's unexpected energy boom and tumbling gas prices. Now it has left their presidential candidates scrambling for a way to reclaim leadership on an issue the party once seemed to own.
Their apparent answer: calling time on a 40-year-old federal ban on crude oil exports and using the newfound energy bounty to strategic advantage.
"We've got an abundance of supply," Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said this week in Oklahoma at a gathering of putative Republican candidates for next year's presidential election. Lifting the ban, he said, would allow exports to "our allies in Europe, where, instead of being dependent on (President) Vladimir Putin and the Russians, they could be dependent on Americans."
Security and Access to Energy
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Mark Green
Posted May 20, 2015
The Wall Street Journal (Leon Panetta and Stephen Hadley): The United States faces a startling array of global security threats, demanding national resolve and the resolve of our closest allies in Europe and Asia. Iran’s moves to become a regional hegemon, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and conflicts driven by Islamic terrorism throughout the Middle East and North Africa are a few of the challenges calling for steadfast commitment to American democratic principles and military readiness. The pathway to achieving U.S. goals also can be economic—as simple as ensuring that allies and friends have access to secure supplies of energy.
Blocking access to these supplies is the ban on exporting U.S. crude oil that was enacted, along with domestic price controls, after the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The price controls ended in 1981 but the export ban lives on, though America is awash in oil.
The U.S. has broken free of its dependence on energy from unstable sources. Only 27% of the petroleum consumed here last year was imported, the lowest level in 30 years. Nearly half of those imports came from Canada and Mexico. But our friends and allies, particularly in Europe, do not enjoy the same degree of independence. The moment has come for the U.S. to deploy its oil and gas in support of its security interests around the world.
Roadblocking America’s Energy Revolution
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Mark Green
Posted March 24, 2015
Last week’s release of the federal Bureau of Land Management’s new hydraulic fracturing rule suggests it’s time to update an infographic we posted last summer on the administration’s regulatory march that could impede America’s energy revolution.
Unfortunately, the administration’s plans for energy regulation aren’t encouraging – not if you truly grasp the historic opportunity that surging domestic production of oil and natural gas is providing the United States.
We’re talking about the complete rewrite of America’s energy narrative, from one of scarcity – limiting America’s economic possibilities and overshadowing its national security concerns – to one of abundance in which the U.S. is more self-sufficient, more prosperous and more secure in the world.
We call that historic, revolutionary, a true renaissance in American energy.
Offshore Energy and South Carolina
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Mark Green
Posted February 20, 2015
Offshore Energy and Florida
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Mark Green
Posted February 19, 2015