Gulf Drilling Moratorium Costing Less Than Predicted

New York Times:

WASHINGTON -- When the Obama administration called a halt to virtually all deepwater drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon blowout and fire in April, oil executives, economists and local officials complained that the six-month moratorium would cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Oil supply firms went to court to have the moratorium overturned, calling it illegal and warning that it would exacerbate the nation's economic woes, lead to oil shortages and cause an exodus of drilling rigs from the gulf to other fields around the world. Two federal courts agreed.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[The last sane American]

06:51 AM on 08/27/2010

Baker Hughes shows a drop of 10 offshore Louisiana rigs for the most recent week (August 19)

That does not seem to square with the assertions of this article. What is the truth?

[skatoolaki]

07:06 AM on 08/26/2010

I'm not surprised, really. I've suspected this would be the case when the hubbub over this began, but to say so down here (in southern Louisiana) was almost blasphemous.

People would get in a lather trying to explain how this was going to cost more money and more jobs to the already hard-hit Gulf Coast residents and the other oil-working families around the state. There are many Louisiana residents, from all over the state, that "work off-shore" and that fly out for weeks at a time to work on the oil rigs. Since many people, or family/friends they knew, owe their livelihoods to the oil industry here, a vast majority were against the moratorium.

To me, it made sense - make sure other wells are *safe* and up-to-regulation-standards before continuing drilling. After all we'd been through, how could they *not* want that?

In some cases, I'm ashamed to admit (though we are a red state, barring our brazen blue New Orleans), that a lot of the haranguing had more to do with the fact that President Obama made the suggestion than any real concern for job or money loss to innocent oil workers and their families. As is often the case, his very breath is anathema to some, much less any policy he may attempt to invoke.

[HLL]

12:25 PM on 08/26/2010

Excellent posts on this thread, skatoolaki. Fan #243 ☮

We're in a time of transition. More people are recognizing that drilling for oil in the deep ocean isn't safe, (or in the shallow ocean really either because the Gulf can't take another freaking oil disaster.) The oceans all over the world can't keep taking our oil catastrophes and the oil companies have proven that they are not working on safety, just PR spin.

It's time to embrace clean green energy but that is going to be scary for oil workers, although we'll still need oil until we're off it. Just wish the government was faster on the uptake when it comes to clean green energy because millions of jobs would be part of that picture; it would not only great for the Earth but good for the economy. I'm glad oil people have prospered, always happy about that, but now we know better, and have to get out of the oil business and into solar, wind, wave, hemp, and all good clean alternative fuel sources. My 2 cents.

[proglibinsky]

03:14 AM on 08/27/2010

So stop driving your car.

[The last sane American]

06:56 AM on 08/27/2010

"millions of jobs would be part of that picture."

Not until those projects are cost effective. Are you going to buy a 'Volt' costing $50,000 ( oh yes, you will get a $15,000 subsidy to help you stomach it) which replaces a $18,000, all in, internal combustion car?

I hope you have more economic sense.

[grandma58]

04:21 PM on 08/25/2010

Well I guess maybe while there was a moratorium they could have been doing something else. Like finding cheaper ways to do geothermal heating. Maybe invested in a few wave or wind farms. My goodness I think the list is endless. It is not as if though some of those companies don't have a few million to burn.

[skatoolaki]

07:15 AM on 08/26/2010

If BP had spent half as much time (and money/resources) attempting to plug the well or fix half the problems they caused rather than spinning their PR and trying to block news coverage and the full capacity of their liability (by, for example, burning animal carcasses rather than collecting them for testing as they were supposed to be doing or using cheap inmate labor instead of paying local residents - willing and needing to work - a decent wage for clean-up along the beaches, etc.), things might have turned out differently.

Your suggestion makes entirely too much common sense and comes from the p.o.v. of a person concerned with human life and our planet Earth. Coming from their impervious perches and being propelled along by naught but greed, big oil companies such as BP could give a zebra's striped behind about finding better, cleaner ways to provide oil or fuel energy for future generations.

They want to keep on doing it as they always have done, cutting costs and ignoring regulations around every corner to keep upping their profits even when said profits are already ridiculously and impossibly high (I mean, how money do you *need* to make - is there no glass ceiling at some point where any more would just be, just is, superfluous?).

Besides that, I'm fairly certain (though not 100%) that the moratorium was only on rigs in the Gulf of Mexico; other BP oil rigs around the world continued business as usual.

[grandma58]

10:04 AM on 08/29/2010

Maybe the problem is the profits. The kinds of clean energy available are probably endless and thus not as profitable. What is p.o.v.?

[HLL]

12:19 PM on 08/26/2010

Fanned, grandma! You're so right ☮

[KIMBER]

01:35 PM on 08/25/2010

The vast amount of right-wing fear-mongering does not come true, as most of it isn't based in anything but hysteria.

[skatoolaki]

07:27 AM on 08/26/2010

Actually, more than just right-wing fear-mongering as a great deal of - and some of the loudest - protestations came from men and their families whose livelihoods depend upon the oil rigs; though I'd imagine some of that fear was stoked by said right-wing fear-mongering and quietly whispered suggestions from Big Oil.

From "up North" (truly, Shreveport to those of us in southern Louisiana is viewed as almost a different and wholly separate state, though many in southern Arkansas work on the rigs, all the way to the tip of Port Eads, thousands of families have members that "work off-shore"; being flown out to one of the many oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico to work for weeks at a time. Many of these people feared the moratorium would mean lay-offs and lost work for people already hurting because of the explosion and/or the touch economic times starting to truly hit Louisiana hard.

As I said, I tend to believe the fire of this fear was lit by right-wingers and Big Oil, and further stoked by them so that locals would reject President Obama's moratorium decision. Regardless how it came about, there were many protests against the moratorium than from just right-wingers with their greedy hands in Big Oil's pockets.

[guveqzero]

12:55 PM on 08/25/2010

Big business doesn't need to be truthfull, they just want to make money. This is the reason we don't have solar and wind farms replacing oil. The US is blessed with the land for both, but we are cursed with the big business mentality of maintaining profits at lowest risks.

[Cacey]

12:20 PM on 08/25/2010

The simple statement of 50,000 jobs being lost was false on one hand and selfish on the other. How do you "lose" jobs that have not been created? And how does that 50,000 compare with the hundreds of thousands of jobs on Gulf shores that were affected by the spill and would be affected by another spill.

[GafferTapeLvr]

12:19 PM on 08/25/2010

Well they just had to pay primary bribes give em a chance to gin the figures a tad!

[BBackSoon]

11:59 AM on 08/25/2010

Yea these lines at the gas station suck.

[DorianCorso]

10:47 AM on 08/25/2010

Well I for one am surprised the wingnuts would try to mislead us about anything.

[dojone]

02:21 PM on 08/25/2010

Who would have thought that oil company executives might try to mislead the people? I am amazed.

[AyeChart]

10:47 AM on 08/25/2010

The KEY sentence in the article begins:

"While it is too early to gauge the long-term environmental or economic effects..."

However, while it is too early, that doesn't stop the NYT from blathering on about the effects! That is, they admit that the effects are unknown and yet pontificate about how the effects are not so bad just yet!

First off, some of the people who would have been unemployed during this period are working on oil cleanup, etc.

Second, the companies may not yet have laid off people they will later have to lay off.

Third, 2 of the big rigs have left already, and the moratorium of 6 months is not half over yet and the court challenges may or may not succeed in staying the execution. The uncertainty may cause more to leave.

Oil and oil-drilling are fungible. If they aren't drilling and producing in one area, they can shift to another big find.

And oil will become more costly and the money will flow OUT OF THIS COUNTRY rather than at least some of it staying here.

[gitrdone]

10:52 AM on 08/25/2010

"Third, 2 of the big rigs have left already, and the moratorium of 6 months is not half over yet"

Yea, out of about 32 if you read the article. At this rate, what, maybe 4-5 will leave? Hardly as devastating as you predict.

[wdw505]

01:26 PM on 08/25/2010

bad enough though

[wdw505]

01:25 PM on 08/25/2010

well said

[intolleft]

10:44 AM on 08/25/2010

Yea, you're right...these where completely unmanned robotic rigs that provided zero jobs and no revenue.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7101738.html

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/540265/201007131904/Idled-Gulf-Rigs-Head-For-Africa.aspx

That is one million dollars a day taxable revenue out the window right just for the presence of those two rigs in the Gulf.

These job losses didn't really happen either:

http://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2010/08/21/federal-drilling-regulator-pegs-moratorium-job-losses-at-23k/

[natchez]

10:33 AM on 08/25/2010

I emailed my Republican Sen. and Congressman today with this NYT article. All responsible voters need to contact their representatives. The time to stop the obstructionists is now. Vote in November

[maxwelldog]

01:44 PM on 08/25/2010

the basic problem with labels is plainly shown here.
"OBSTUCTIONISTS"
Obstucting the use of petroleum?
Obstructing the study of our scientists?
Obstructing further Solar and Wind power options?
Obstructing progress and vehicles that don't use (as much or any at all) petroleum?

[yourmotherwasahamster]

10:31 AM on 08/25/2010

Conservative fear mongering with no basis in reality? I suppose next you will tell me there's no Easter bunny.

[Jason Ballard]

09:59 AM on 08/25/2010

HuffPost should carry the story that the oil is disappearing at an incredible rate due entirely to Mother Nature's resiliency along side this one. I said early on that the Gulf would heal itself and there would be little evidence of a spill by next summer. Looks like the disaster was way over blown and makes future claims by the Enviro Bolsheviks nothing more than screams by Chicken Little.

"Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California said bacteria, “spearheaded by a new and unclassified species”, were degrading the oil rapidly without depleting oxygen. Their study, which used ship-based sampling during May and June, is published by the journal Science.

Terry Hazen, the study leader, said the natural enrichment of the plume with a variety of oil-eating microbes “appears to be one of the major mechanisms behind the rapid decline of the deep-water dispersed oil plume that has been observed”.

The biodegradation rates the Berkeley Lab scientists found – with oil compounds lasting just a few days – suggest that what was once a huge oil plume has by now almost disappeared. "

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/78581608-af9e-11df-b45b-00144feabdc0.html

[soitgoes12]

10:30 AM on 08/25/2010

A link to the article is on this page... what you fail to mention is that the study was funded by BP. Of course, I'm sure there is no conflict of interest there.

[DorianCorso]

10:55 AM on 08/25/2010

BP has been sending their paid goons here for months.

[OldSelfHere]

03:18 PM on 08/25/2010

Hey, BP is an honorable Multinational Corporation with billions at stake and billions in the bank.. they would never sponsor a study and tell the scientists what their findings are before they do the studies.. would they?

[rfshunt]

10:34 AM on 08/25/2010

If this turns out to be true, it's very good news.

But, the Financial Times appears to be more optimistic than the actual scientists they cite.

The full paper is behind a paywall - but from the abstract:

Based on these results, the potential exists for intrinsic bioremediation of the oil plume in the deep-water column without substantial oxygen drawdown.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1195979

I hope this potential turns out to be reality.

[AyeChart]

09:45 AM on 08/25/2010

Rigs have already left for elsewhere. We won't know the whole story for a long time.

[DorianCorso]

10:53 AM on 08/25/2010

Name them and where they went.

[Eric10931]

11:32 AM on 08/25/2010

Ocean Confidence - Republic of Congo
Ocean Endeavor - Egypt
Ocean Scepter - Brazil

All Diamond Offshore rigs that were working in the Gulf with contracts in the GOM until the drilling moratorium