US offshore operators have more in common than they might think with independent producers fracturing horizontal onshore wells in England. The important work of both groups faces more than usual political resistance.
For offshore producers, access to federal acreage outside the Central and Western Gulf of Mexico always has been a problem. But opposition to Outer Continental Shelf leasing intensified after the Macondo tragedy of 2010 and with the emergence of well-funded campaigns to block production of oil and gas as a precaution against climate change.
Setbacks and gains
For OCS work, setbacks lately have outnumbered gains. President Donald Trump’s 2017 rescue of leasing off Alaska and the Eastern Seaborn has stumbled. By executive order soon after taking office, Trump reversed his predecessor’s December 2016 executive orders withdrawing from leasing consideration 3.8 million acres in the US North and Middle Atlantic and 115 million acres in federal arctic waters. Late in March, his aggressive strategy ran afoul of a federal court ruling in Alaska. US District Judge Sharon L. Gleason said the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953 authorized withdrawal of a commanding portion of the OCS from energy evaluation via executive order but reciprocal action with the same mechanism. Only Congress can reverse withdrawal, Gleason said in a decision sure to be challenged. Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior, while denying reports it has delayed OCS oil and gas leasing indefinitely because of the ruling, nevertheless said it’s “evaluating all of its options.”
In Congress last month, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) introduced a bill foreclosing oil and gas leasing and development off Florida. Citing the Macondo blowout, she noted that her state’s coasts “provide abundant marine life habitat and a destination for beach-lovers worldwide”—ignoring the energy required by travel to Florida, especially from abroad.
At least two presidential aspirants in the Democratic Party would ban OCS leasing altogether. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts says she would impose a moratorium to ensure “there is no more drilling on public lands,” a measure former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas says he’ll consider. While Wasserman Schultz bases her proposal on concern about spilled oil, Warren and O’Rourke assert the need to spurn fossil energy in response to climate change, which O’Rourke calls “the greatest threat we face.”
In this political environment, the offshore oil and gas industry will have to consistently defend its work. Pointing to the considerable improvements that have occurred since Macondo in well control, spill preparedness, and regulation will be crucially important. But that won’t be enough. To the thought-free insistence by Warren, O’Rourke, and others like them that the world must discard fossil energy, response must be firm and clear.
Just such a message emerged on Apr. 24 when Natascha Engel resigned in expressed frustration as the UK government’s commissioner for shale gas. A former Labor Party member of Parliament, Engel was named to the new position last October, commissioned to encourage communication among operators, communities, and regulators. The government officially supports shale-gas development. Pushed by opponents of hydraulic fracturing, however, it installed a “stop-light” system of seismic monitoring during frac jobs, which must be suspended for analysis when induced tremors reach magnitude 0.5. Operators say the very cautious threshold impedes work.
‘Pandering to myths’
Engel, who wrote material supporting shale development under contract for one of the operators before accepting the shale-commissioner position, agreed. In her resignation letter, she criticized the government for “pandering to what we know to be myths and scare stories.” And in an interview with BBC, she forced rare nuance into the climate discussion. “The need to reduce our carbon emissions is absolutely urgent,” she said, “and fracing is absolutely one way we can do that.”
Engel’s direct clarity can be a model for an offshore oil and gas industry under frenzied political attack. Reminders are in order that fossil energy, whether from land and sea, overcomes drawbacks with benefits too frequently ignored.
