Beaudreau hopes new 2012-17 OCS program sets pattern for others
The Dec. 29, 2011, completion of a draft programmatic environmental impact statement for 10 tentatively scheduled oil and gas lease sales in the central and western Gulf of Mexico was only the latest step in the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's proposed 5-year US Outer Continental Shelf Program. Even getting it under way was a significant challenge, BOEM Director Tommy P. Beaudreau confirmed.
"It's an incredible testament to career staff members who worked very late many weeknights and through several weekends to get it done, while keeping other programs going," he told OGJ in an interview at the new US Department of the Interior agency's headquarters in Washington, DC. He also hopes that the final program that emerges becomes the template for its successors, Beaudreau added. "This 5-year planning document is BOEM's first statement about its principles for leasing," he said.
The draft 5-year program, which would run from July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2017, clearly reflects lessons learned from the 2010 Macondo deepwater well incident and oil spill in the gulf. Beaudreau said DOI and the US Minerals Management Service, of which BOEM was a part at the time, were considering which offshore areas to scope under the next 5-year plan, including the US South and Mid-Atlantic planning areas, when the incident occurred.
"There have been expressions of disappointment, and we appreciate what people are saying," he said. "But the decision involved very specific strategies based on getting current information about potential resources there. It was not simply kicking the can down the road." Information that is more than 30 years old will be replaced with evaluations including planned seismic studies while completing a National Environmental Policy Act assessment to be announced this spring, he said.
"We're not rushing into lease sales off the South and Mid-Atlantic coasts," Beaudreau maintained. "We're building the foundation for potential exploration of this area."
'Strong incentive'
BOEM plans to offer contracts to offshore seismic service companies that would turn the information over to the agency for planning purposes, but otherwise retain it on a proprietary basis for possible sale to producers. "We have a lot of confidence that they'll go forward because there will be a strong incentive for companies to want resource information for these areas," Beaudreau said.
He added that he plans to speak with Virginia Natural Resources Sec. Douglas W. Domenech later this month. He said he and other top BOEM officials have been meeting with their US Department of Defense counterparts to discuss coordinating possible oil and gas activity with established military programs off Virginia, where there's a large US Navy presence.
Beaudreau conceded that a similar situation in the gulf, where the two groups have worked together for decades, provides a possible model, but emphasized that each US offshore area is unique and presents its own coordination challenges.
That's also the case off Alaska, where the proposed 2012-17 OCS program includes sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas late in the 5-year period. Beaudreau recently returned from presiding at hearings in three Alaskan communities, where he quickly recognized there were many perspectives that needed to be considered.
He favors a more regionally specific approach there that considers environmental and subsistence impacts in addition to resource potential over earlier efforts that began with wide areas nominated by producers. BOEM will be developing scientific information on currents, whale migrations, and fish habitat to determine whether the sales should be held, he said.
Spill response capacity
A more immediate issue is Arctic spill response capacity, particularly since Shell Offshore Co. has submitted exploration plans for leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas that it has held for 5 years. Beaudreau said the group, which US President Barack Obama formed under Deputy US Interior Sec. David J. Hayes's direction to coordinate federal oil and gas activities in Alaska, is considering what needs to be at hand if Shell proceeds with plans to drill its first wells on the leases this summer. Longer-term questions also need to be considered, an effort that is already under way, BOEM's director said.
The proposed 5-year program will be the first established under an agency separate from revenue and enforcement responsibilities that US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar believed created a serious conflict of interests at MMS. "At the new BOEM, we are trying to establish principles going forward," Beaudreau said. "They involve using geologic and geophysical, environmental, and social science approaches. Stakeholder engagement is incredibly essential. That is what I told the Alaskans I met with 2 weeks ago."
Told that previous 5-year OCS programs were developed by a planning board which included state and local government officials, oil and gas industry representatives, members from other businesses and industries, and environmental organization representatives, he said it was a cross-regional approach that differed somewhat from the current emphasis on addressing each area's challenges specifically. "I'm open to consider whatever forum is most appropriate," he emphasized. "I'm not closing off any ideas at this point."
In the meantime, he said BOEM would continue implementing reforms stemming from the Macondo well accident and spill, as well as plans to being producing renewable energy offshore. "That will be an area of tremendous focus in coming years, notably in the Atlantic, but also in some areas of the Pacific," Beaudreau said.
It also will use the same "smart from the start" approach Salazar has tried to implement for oil and gas activity on federal tracts onshore and offshore where conflicts are addressed and removed before leases are offered, he indicated.
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About the Author
Nick Snow
NICK SNOW covered oil and gas in Washington for more than 30 years. He worked in several capacities for The Oil Daily and was founding editor of Petroleum Finance Week before joining OGJ as its Washington correspondent in September 2005 and becoming its full-time Washington editor in October 2007. He retired from OGJ in January 2020.