US Offshore Drilling Takes Center Stage
U.S. lawmakers will quiz President Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the Interior Department on Thursday, focusing on the former energy and mining lobbyist’s plans to expand fossil fuels production from the United States' public lands and waters.The Interior Department, which oversees more than a fifth of the U.S. land surface from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, has been central to Trump's policy of boosting domestic crude oil, natural gas and coal production.David Bernhardt, 49, has been acting secretary at the department since December when his predecessor Ryan Zinke resigned under a cloud of ethics investigations.
U.S. Announces Major Offshore Wind Developments
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced three major developments in American offshore wind energy spanning from coast to coast.The Secretary spoke at the American Wind Energy Association’s Offshore Wind Conference and announced 1.) much-anticipated wind auction in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts; 2.) the environmental review of a proposed wind project offshore Rhode Island; and 3.) the next steps to a first-ever wind auction in federal waters off of California.“I'm very bullish on offshore wind, and harnessing this renewable resource is a big part of the Trump Administration's made in America energy strategy…
Several US States Likely Withheld from Offshore Drilling Plan
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has hinted to at least six coastal states that he will keep their waters out of a looming plan to expand U.S. offshore drilling, telling some they lack enough oil to be included anyway, according to state officials and transcripts from public hearings.Zinke's comments are the clearest indication to date that the Trump administration’s initial proposal to open nearly all U.S. waters to drilling, announced in January, will be significantly pared back by the time it is finalized. The proposal is expected later this year.The administration had billed its initial plan as a good way to boost domestic energy production…
Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale to Test Response to Trump-era Regulations
A federal auction of exploration leases in the Gulf of Mexico next week will test energy companies' appetite for acreage after the Trump administration left royalty rates for deepwater parcels unchanged, bucking an industry call to lower them.The U.S. Gulf of Mexico has faced waning interest in recent years as competition stepped up from other basins globally, as well as from onshore shale basins and Mexico's waters in the Gulf.Oil companies had lobbied for lower royalty payments for deepwater acreage because of the projects' high cost and long lead time before production can begin.
Trump Effort to Lift U.S. Offshore Wind Sector Sparks Interest
The Trump administration wants to fire up development of the U.S. offshore wind industry by streamlining permitting and carving out vast areas off the coast for leasing - part of its 'America First' policy to boost domestic energy production and jobs.The Europeans have taken note.The drive to open America's offshore wind industry has attracted Europe's biggest renewable energy companies, who see the U.S. East Coast as a new frontier after years of success across the Atlantic.Less experienced U.S. wind power companies, meanwhile, have struggled to compete in their own backyard, according to lease data and interviews with industry executives.
US Military Seeks Rules for Drilling in Gulf of Mexico
An expansion of oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico would interfere with U.S. military testing unless the Pentagon and another agency develop rules to govern the work, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a report this week.The Defense Department concluded in a report it sent on Wednesday to U.S. lawmakers that drilling east of the Military Mission Line in the Gulf of Mexico, a demarcation more than 200 miles (320 km) west of Florida, would harm military testing operations without the rules."Military flexibility in the region would be lost and test and training activities would be severely affected…
US Interior Secretary Sees Little Demand for New Offshore Drilling
U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said on Friday that he sees little demand from oil and gas companies for new offshore drilling leases, which could pose problems for his plan to ramp up output from federal waters.The comments come just three months after Zinke had proposed opening nearly all U.S. ocean coastlines to drilling, in a bid to raise domestic oil and gas production. The plan sparked immediate protests from coastal states, environmentalists and the tourism industry.Zinke said a record-sized U.S. auction of offshore oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico…
Record-size US Offshore Oil Lease Sale Draws Modest Bidding
Oil and gas drillers bid modestly on Gulf of Mexico acreage in the largest lease sale in American history on Wednesday, dealing a setback to the Trump administration's efforts to rapidly pump up investment in the region. The Interior Department had offered up a record 77 million acres (31.2 million hectares) for development in the Gulf with discounted royalty rates on the shallower tracts as part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump's administration to ramp up U.S. fossil fuels output. But companies bid on just 1 percent of that acreage…
US States Slow Trump Offshore Oil Drilling Expansion Plan
The Trump administration's plan to broadly expand drilling in U.S. offshore waters is moving slowly due to opposition from coastal states and indifference from oil companies that have turned their focus to other opportunities. The administration hopes encouraging U.S. energy development outside of shale oilfields will further its goal of "energy dominance." But existing Obama administration lease rules remain in place through 2022 unless the new rules gain approval. The Department of the Interior this year proposed opening vast new acreage in the U.S. outer continental shelf to drilling. The comment period wrapped up March 9.
Trump Wades Deeper into Biofuel Debate
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday will gather rivals from the oil and corn industries for the second time this week as the administration seeks elusive common ground on reforms to the nation's controversial biofuels law. The meetings come amid rising concern in the White House over the current state of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a law requiring refiners to mix biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into their fuel, which has increasingly divided two of Trump's most important constituencies. A refining company…
California to Ban Crude from Trump Offshore Drilling Plan
California will block the transport of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs through its state, officials told Reuters, a move meant to hobble the Trump administration’s effort to vastly expand drilling in U.S. federal waters. California's threat to deny pipeline permits for transporting oil from new leases off the Pacific Coast is the latest step by states trying to halt the biggest proposed expansion in decades of federal oil and gas leasing. Officials in Florida, North and South Carolina, Delaware and Washington, have also warned drilling could despoil beaches, harm wildlife and hurt lucrative tourism industries.
Alaska Requests Limits on US Offshore Drilling
Alaska Governor Bill Walker said on Tuesday he has asked U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to pare back a Trump administration plan for oil and gas leasing off the state's coast. While Walker supports offshore oil development, he said the Interior Department should focus on the most prospective areas off Alaska – the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the Arctic and Cook Inlet in southern Alaska – and drop all others from the leasing plan. In asking for proposed lease sales to be dropped, Walker, an independent, joins governors…
US Senators from 12 States Seek Offshore Drilling Exemptions like Florida's
Twenty-two Democratic U.S. senators from 12 states on Thursday joined the chorus of local representatives seeking exemptions from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's newly proposed offshore drilling plan, after his surprise move on Tuesday to shield Florida. Zinke surprised lawmakers, governors, and industry groups on Tuesday night by announcing that Florida would be removed from the Interior Department's proposal to open up over 90 percent of federal waters to oil and gas leasing. Zinke had met in Tallahasee with Republican Governor Rick Scott who told the Interior chief that drilling puts his state's coastal tourism economy at risk.
Trump Offshore Oil Proposal Could Unlock 65 Bln BOE
The Trump administration's proposal to open up almost all of U.S. offshore waters to oil and gas drilling could unlock up to 65 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), attracting billions of dollars in investment, consultancy Rystad Energy said. Last week, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said a draft program would make over 90 percent of the outer continental shelf's total acreage available for leasing to drillers, a national record. "Looking purely at areas that are potentially going to come out of restriction, we are talking about something closer to 65 billion boe…
After Florida, more States Press US for Offshore Drilling Exemptions
Governors and other officials from several U.S. coastal states ramped up pressure on the Trump administration on Wednesday to exempt their waters from an offshore drilling plan, hours after the Interior Department granted Florida's request to opt out. The backlash could complicate President Donald Trump's efforts to expand oil and gas production offshore. A proposed leasing plan unveiled last week aims to open up all U.S. coasts to drillers over the next five years. Alaska and Maine are the only two U.S. states whose governors have expressed support for the plan.
As US Opens Up Offshore Waters, Eastern GoM Beckons
President Donald Trump's administration has proposed opening up nearly all of America's offshore waters to oil and gas drilling, but the industry says it is mainly interested in one part of it, now cordoned off by the Pentagon: the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The industry's focus on an area located near a sprawling network of existing platforms, pipes and ports could ease the path to new reserves, and assuage the drilling opponents near other places offered under the Interior Department's proposed drilling plan issued last week, like California's Pacific, the Atlantic and Arctic. But accessing it would likely require the consent of the U.S. military.
Trump Aims to Open Nearly All US Offshore to Oil Drilling
The Trump administration on Thursday proposed opening nearly all U.S. offshore waters to oil and gas drilling, a move aimed at boosting domestic energy production that sparked protests from coastal states, environmentalists and the tourism industry. The effort to open previously off-limits acreage in the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans comes less than eight years after BP Plc's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico - the largest in American history. The disaster caused billions of dollars in economic damage and led former President Barack Obama's to increase regulation of the industry.
US Senate Pushes Alaska Wildlife Refuge, But Drillers Look Elsewhere
Even as the U.S. Senate moves to allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the real action is 150 miles (241 km) west, where industry proponents hope a coming sale of 10 million acres of land will revitalize the state's sagging crude production. The Trump administration, through the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, will auction off 10 million acres on Wednesday in the National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A), a hotbed of oil exploration and development in the western part of Alaska's North Slope. The planned sale has encouraged the oil industry while angering environmental groups.
U.S. Interior Dept. says Federal Energy, Mineral Revenues Rose by $1bln
Energy and mineral production on federal and tribal land generated $7.1 billion in disbursements in fiscal year 2017, $1 billion more than the previous year, the U.S. Interior Department said on Thursday. *Interior attributed the increase in disbursements to a larger number of lease sales totaling higher acreage, efforts to streamline permitting and reduce regulatory burdens, and higher oil and gas prices experienced during the year. *Interior's Office of Natural Resources Revenue disbursed $1.44 billion to five western states…
US Marine Sanctuary Oil Drilling Report Sent to Trump, Not Public
U.S. Commerce Department Secretary Wilbur Ross sent a report to the White House on Wednesday containing recommendations on whether to change the boundaries of 11 marine sanctuaries to allow more oil and gas drilling, but the report was not made public. Commerce reviewed sanctuaries containing 425 million acres of coral reefs, marine mammal habitats and pristine beaches, as part of an administration strategy to open new areas to oil and gas drilling. The goal was to “put the energy needs of American families and businesses first,” according to the order Trump signed in April that triggered it.
