Steven PoruBan
Senior Editor
With all the momentous, world-changing events taking place in the news recently—from the escalating civil unrest in Libya to the breakdown of long-standing ruling governments of other North African nations—it's amazing to see that there remains no shortage in news of the weird and wacky variety to break up some of the seriousness.
Of course, it's the job of OGJ editors to cull through news and report on events that most affect the oil and gas industry, therefore actively preventing many if not all of these less-than-hard-hitting tidbits from ever reaching the journal's pages. But sometimes strange news just beckons to be heard. What follows are just a few recent gems.
Rain check, please
Last month in a daily energy brief, analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc. noted that Dallas independent Pioneer Natural Resources Co. reported a few unusual net gains in its fourth-quarter 2010 earnings filing, one being a favorable $140 million cash settlement related to an insurance claim for the reclamation and abandonment of the company's East Cameron 322 facility in the Gulf of Mexico that was destroyed by Hurricane Rita in 2005.
Pioneer stated, "Operations to reclaim and abandon the East Cameron 322 facility began in 2006 and are substantially complete, with only minor activities remaining to be completed during 2011."
This item makes the "strange" news list, of course, because of the number of years it has taken for Pioneer to recover the loss. The company stated that it planned to use the proceeds of insurance settlement "to further support oil-related drilling in the Spraberry, Eagle Ford shale, and Barnett shale combo play." Good on them, finally.
Uncultured advertising
In November, Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) ruled that a Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers' television advertisement highlighting environmental performance was not misleading.
Earlier in 2010, activist group Sierra Club complained to ASC about CAPP's use of the phrase "essentially like yogurt" in a TV ad about tailings pond reclamation. CAPP used the reference to yogurt to describe the consistency of oil sands tailings material.
Following an extensive review of the commercial, ASC agreed CAPP's reference to yogurt referred only to the apparent physical consistency of tailings material.
Janet Annesley, CAPP vice-president, communications, said, "Tailings reclamation technology is a game changer. The tailings reclamation proof point will go back on air minus reference to yogurt, just to remove any potential misunderstanding."
CAPP's environmental performance claims have not been challenged. CAPP's French translation of the ad says "consistants comme du yoghurt" and received no complaints, the Canadian producers' organization said.
Chimp vs. NOAA
Just before the start of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, Washington, DC-based think tank National Center for Public Policy Research thought of an unusual way to predict the number of storms during the season better than the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NCPPR said NOAA's track record in predicting the number of hurricanes was "so abysmal" that "a trained chimp could do better." (You can probably see where this is going.)
"NOAA's May outlooks have been wrong 3 out of the last 4 years—or 75% of the time," said David Ridenour, NCPPR vice-president. "We think our chimp can do better. He hasn't been wrong so far. Of course, this is his very first hurricane season forecast."
NCPPR videotaped the chimpanzee—"Dr. James Hansimian"—making a prediction of 6-8 Atlantic hurricanes in 2010. "The video isn't intended to needle NOAA for its erroneous forecasts, but to make a larger point about our current understanding of climate," NCPPR said.
Ridenour posed this challenge to NOAA: "If, at the end of the hurricane season, Dr. Hansimian's forecast turns out to be more accurate than NOAA's, we challenge the agency to make him an honorary member of NOAA's hurricane specialists unit. In return, if NOAA's forecast is more accurate, we'll include a prominently displayed mea culpa on our web site."
Needless to say, Dr. Hansimian is not an NOAA card-carrying member. Not yet, at least.
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