National Ocean Industries Association Pres. Randall B. Luthi takes a back seat to no one when it comes to applauding increased onshore unconventional oil and gas production's contribution to the nation's dramatically improved energy outlook. That doesn't mean, however, that he's ready to abandon efforts to get more access to US offshore resources.
"We still need it," Luthi told the US Energy Association's 7th Annual Energy Supply Forum at the National Press Club on Oct. 2. "[The US Energy Information Administration] recently reduced its Monterey shale projections. Other onshore plays are petering out more quickly than expected."
The US has had a succession of no-new-access 5-year programs for managing federal Outer Continental Shelf holdings for more than 30 years, Luthi said. "We don't know what's out there because we haven't gone out and looked in nearly 4 decades."
He speaks with authority because he was US Minerals Management Service director from July 2007 through January 2009 when a single federal agency within the US Department of the Interior oversaw OCS management and activities.
As he became US Sec. of the Interior at the start of President Barack Obama's first term, Ken Salazar saw serious conflicts in MMS's operations.
He initially moved its revenue collection operation to a new Office of Natural Resources Revenue within the secretary's office. The 2010 Macondo deepwater well blowout and crude oil spill accelerated Salazar's division of MMS's remaining roles into the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
Asked following his USEA forum remarks how he, as a former MMS director, would grade BOEM's recent Mid-Atlantic geologic and geophysical final programmatic environmental impact statement, Luthi gave it a B "because it's done after 8 years."
Potential to proceed
He also questioned whether its stringent mitigation measures were scientifically necessary, but conceded there's potential finally for seismic companies to begin moving forward gathering data along the Mid-Atlantic OCS.
"We're concerned about current attacks on seismic work offshore," Luthi said. "In 40 years, there's not been a documented instance where seismic work has harmed marine life. There are reasons for this: It's highly regulated, it starts at low levels, and it gradually ramps up so marine life can adjust to it."
To a follow-up question concerning BSEE's progress on developing requirements for offshore operators and the companies working for them to use the best available safety technology, Luthi responded: "The tricky party is who determines what it is and how it will be implemented.
He explains, "Government regulators traditionally lag behind the oil and gas industry, but they are working with the Center for Offshore Safety on this. The key, again, is close cooperation."
