Summertime is in full swing in Houston and elsewhere. School-age children now populate the city streets during the daytime hours, temperatures climb in a seemingly direct correlation to residents' electricity bills, and those employed by the oil and natural gas industry become more difficult to reach by phone or e-mail due to their taking time off work for much-needed vacations.
As this staff writer has started to prepare for a long-awaited, week-long vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina—more specifically, Nags Head—thoughts turn to the ambitious yet controversial plans of some oil and gas companies to drill for hydrocarbons off that state's shores.
Nags Head, as are many of the beach towns along North Carolina's coast, is home to many miles of pristine sandy shores lined with sea oats that wave gently in the warm, salty Atlantic breeze. From shore, flocks of pelicans and other seabirds and schools of dolphin are welcome, everyday sights. Long walks along the beach turn up seashells and driftwood so strikingly beautiful that they immediately become prized possessions of the countless suntanned beachcombers.
What would it be like, then, for the view from an oceanfront rental cottage in Nags Head to include, far out in the distance, platforms producing oil and gas? It would look much different, for sure.
Both views
The long-standing dispute over permitting oil and gas companies to drill for hydrocarbons off North Carolina and elsewhere is pretty cut-and-dried.
Proponents say that oil and gas companies should be permitted to survey and subsequently tap into oil and gas reservoirs contained within a certain portion of federally held acreage so as to increase reserves for domestic consumption, thus easing the nation's dependence on foreign resources. Many analysts insist that gas resources from existing sites, for example, are becoming scarce and that the need is great to explore new areas to replenish dwindling US gas supplies.
Opponents, meanwhile, contend that allowing companies to drill offshore will mar the coast's unspoiled landscape while increasing the possible risk of oil spills and other accidents in the area, therefore creating an environmental hazard.
History lesson
According to the North Carolina Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources' Division of Coastal Management (DCM), the waters off North Carolina are covered by a federal moratorium on East Coast offshore drilling until sometime in 2012. The waters became fully protected in the fall of 2000 when Conoco Inc. (now ConocoPhillips) relinquished the last of its leases in the original 21-block Manteo Exploration Unit (MEU), a group of federally leased blocks about 45 miles off Cape Hatteras, NC, DCM said.
Conoco had owned five leases in the unit while sharing ownership of three others with units of other oil companies. In early 2000, Chevron Corp. (now ChevronTexaco Corp.), Mobil Oil Corp. (now ExxonMobil Corp.), and Marathon Oil Corp. either sold or gave up rights to their leases, DCM reported.
MEU is the same area where Mobil proposed to drill a decade earlier, DMC said, adding, "North Carolina found that Mobil's request was not consistent with its coastal policies because the company had not provided the specific information the state needed to make a decision."
In late 1990, the US Minerals Management Service released a report that found Mobil's plan to drill a wildcat off Cape Hatteras would have only "temporary, local, and minor" environmental effects (OGJ, Sept. 17, 1990, p. 46). Mobil's plan was to drill a well in 2,690 ft of water to test its Manteo prospect: a 5 by 30 mile Upper Jurassic carbonate structure postulated at the time to contain as much as 5 tcf of dry gas.
Lawsuits later ensued over lease contract breaches, and eventually all leases in MEU were suspended. "Conoco, which bought Chevron's leases in early 2000, would have been able to submit exploration plans until the leases expired in 2002," DMC said. "Instead, the company chose to relinquish the leases."
Pending energy bill
Even though years old, this controversy rages on within the halls of Congress.
A provision in the comprehensive energy bill pending before the Senate at presstime last week would direct federal land managers to conduct a more thorough inventory of available oil and gas resources both onshore and offshore, including areas now subject to drilling moratoriums.
This could place pressure on the federal government to open up certain acreage to oil and gas exploration. This might include the acreage off the Outer Banks.
Something serious to ponder while enjoying that lighthearted, best-selling paperback on the beach in Nags Head.
