Musings: Building Sand Castles - BSEE's Regulatory Over-Reach

This opinion piece presents the opinions of the author.
It does not necessarily reflect the views of Rigzone.

On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on Transocean's Deepwater Horizon, a nine-year old semisubmersible drilling rig working to drill the first well on BP plc.'s Macondo prospect in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion, resulting fire and eventual sinking of the rig set off a chain of events that unleashed the greatest oil spill in U.S. oil industry history. The Deepwater Horizon disaster resulted in the deaths of 11 workers, while 94 crewmen were rescued.

Two days after the explosion, an oil leak was detected from the well and industry and government officials shifted into high gear in an attempt initially to contain the spill and ultimately design a way to permanently seal the well. Numerous attempts were made to try to close the blowout preventer shear rams, pump drilling mud and cement into the well, place a containment dome over the well to catch the leaking oil and burning off some of the oil that rose to the surface. Other ideas were considered and discarded. Eventually a relief well was drilled that intersected with the original well bore and cement was pumped in to permanently plug the leaking well. On September 19, 2010, U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen (ret.), the incident commander for the Macondo spill, declared the well "effectively dead" and of no future danger to the Gulf of Mexico.

The offshore oil and gas industry was disrupted not only by the disaster but also from the federal government's actions to shut down all offshore drilling until forced by the courts to allow shallow water drilling activity and eventually deepwater drilling to resume. Another impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster was the revamping of the federal government's natural resource regulatory structure, taking the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service and breaking into three parts in order to eliminate conflicting missions – one (Office of Natural Resources Revenue) to manage the royalty and revenues derived from the nation's resources, another (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) to manage the sustainable development of the nation's offshore resources, and the third (Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement) to regulate safety and environmental oversight of offshore oil and gas activities.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) became actively involved in examining the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which has led to revisions to existing offshore safety and operating procedures. As part of the establishment of BSEE, the federal government announced it had the power (and duty) to regulate all companies involved in offshore resource activity, which was a significant extension of its regulatory power. Prior to this announced expansion of its regulatory scope, the MMS/BSEE only regulated through its contractual relationship with offshore operators (lessees). Offshore service companies conducting drilling, construction, transportation and maintenance activities on operated leases were regulated through Incidents of Non Compliance (INCs) sent to the lessee. Now, following the Deepwater Horizon accident and resulting Macondo oil spill, two service companies – Halliburton and Transocean - were issued INCs for the first time ever. The authority for BSEE to issue those INCs was derived from the regulators' broad interpretation of the scope of the agency's regulatory powers.

Beyond the question of issuing INCs was problem of BSEE not having offered rules for regulating offshore service company operations. There are strict procedures established under the Administration Procedures Act (APA) that stipulate how federal government agencies are to lay out new industry regulations, the right of industry participants to comment on the proposed rules, and for the federal government to consider these comments in any final rule-making activity. BSEE has yet to promulgate any rules, which would provide an opportunity for companies to comment, discuss and negotiate with the bureau before they become codified.

The latest development in this regulatory jurisdictional issue was the February 19th hearing in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana where Judge Carl Barbier approved Transocean's Partial Consent Decree with the U.S. government. Transocean agreed to pay $1 billion in civil penalties for violations of the Clean Water Act and to take other remedial measures. Transocean has two years to pay the fine and to institute a series of operational safety and emergency response improvements on its rigs. This court-approved settlement resolves all other pending government agency enforcement actions and penalties against Transocean, including the four INCs issued by BSEE in October 2011 for the Macondo disaster. Those INCs (and HAL's INCs) had been on appeal with the Interior Board of Land Appeals.

The negotiated settlement requires Transocean to abandon its appeal of the INCs without an admission of liability for the claims in the INCs and for the U.S. government not to assess any civil or administrative penalties based on the INCs. Importantly, BSEE is not dismissing the INCs. This means that BSEE can claim that its first enforcement action against an offshore contractor successfully resulted in the issuance of INCs. The requirement that Transocean abandon its appeal avoids any judicial review of BSEE's action. The settlement terms raise the question of whether BSEE is concerned about its ability to withstand judicial scrutiny of the expansion of its regulatory authority.

According to a newsletter published by the Houston-based law firm Legge, Farrow, Kimmitt, McGrath & Brown, LLP, "This issue will likely remain unresolved until a court reviews BSEE's current attempts to directly regulate contractors, or until BSEE drafts appropriate regulations and submits them for notice and comment by the industry as required under the Administrative Procedures Act." We would agree with the first conclusion about the potential for a court review clarifying BSEE's authority. However, we doubt that BSEE has any intention of issuing draft regulations for the industry to comment on soon since it believes it already possesses all the authority it needs to issue INCs, even though service companies do not know the rules they must operate under. For this reason, the request by BSEE for comments about its draft safety culture policy statement offers the best opportunity for industry representatives to comment not only on the policy statement but also on other issues involving offshore regulation.

Offshore service company managements need to understand they now are regulated, but without any clear understanding of what the rules are they are operating under and will be judged against. Most energy executives think of industry regulation as that of utilities where government agencies oversee pricing, returns companies can earn and how they operate. In this case, the regulations are only dealing with how a company operates, but that can have a significant impact on financial returns. Operating in the dark is not a sound business strategy, and if it comes as a result of ignoring the opportunity to seek clarity then managers have only themselves to blame if they get caught in this Kafkaesque environment.

G. Allen Brooks works as the Managing Director at PPHB LP. Reprinted with permission of PPHB.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

UK Fracking: A Safe Regulatory Environment?

Hydraulic fracturing operations are back on in the UK after the country's government declared in early December that it had lifted a temporary ban on the practice. But the controversy surrounding the safety of shale gas fracking has not gone away despite the announcement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Department of Energy and Climate Change would establish an Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil.

The news was followed in January by an announcement from Cuadrilla Resources that it plans to submit a planning application to Lancashire County Council, in northwest England, to conduct hydraulic fracturing and flow testing at a well site near the village of Banks. In December, Rigzone reported that the British Geological Society believes shale deposits in the Bowland Basin area of Lancashire could amount to 300 trillion cubic feet of gas.

One of the conditions for the UK government's relenting over shale gas fracking was that it would be subject to new controls to mitigate the risks of seismic activity.

Fracking was originally suspended in the UK in May 2011 after two small seismic tremors were detected in Lancashire near what was then the country's only fracking operation.

As a result, companies planning to carry out hydraulic fracking must now:

Conduct a prior review before fracking begins to assess seismic risk and the existence of faultsSubmit a fracking plan to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showing how seismic risks will be addressedCarry out seismic monitoring before, during and after fracking

The government also insists that a new traffic light system is employed to categorize seismic activity and direct appropriate responses, with a trigger mechanism being used to stop fracking operations in certain conditions.

Cuadrilla, meanwhile, appears to be taking the seismic issue very seriously. Late January, the company announced plans to install the same sensitive monitoring technology around its Anna's Road site that the company had already installed at the Banks site last year.

However, the new focus on monitoring seismic activity connected to fracking is not nearly enough to make the practice safe, according to several groups. As soon as the government decision to allow fracking was made in December, Friends of the Earth Executive Director Andy Atkins issued a statement in which he accused the government of being reckless and that the decision "threatens to contaminate our air and water".

Greenpeace UK added that Freedom of Information requests had revealed that the UK Environment Agency privately expressed fears to the government over threats to drinking water near proposed fracking sites in Sussex, England.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are two organizations fundamentally opposed to any technology that will see an increased use in fossil fuels – even if it means the increased use of natural gas (which is cleaner in terms of carbon emissions than oil and coal). But there are other voices, friendlier to the oil and gas industry, who believe that the government has got it wrong when it comes to its approach to fracking.

Mike Hill, an engineer who lives in the area where Cuadrilla is carrying out its fracking operations, has been lobbying the UK government for a more rigorous approach to regulating the activity. Having worked in the oil and gas sector himself, and now a director of Gemini Control & Automation, he takes a more sober view of fracking but wants to see operations thoroughly checked to ensure it is done safely.

"I got involved in this about two years ago simply because, when I heard that fracking was coming to the UK, I knew that if it is not regulated properly the risks are fairly high," he told Rigzone in a recent interview.

After getting in touch with the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency two years ago, Hill expected these bodies to be "very hot" when it came to regulating fracking.

"I was really expecting that was going to be the case but the responses I got at the time… were absolutely atrocious. It was breathtakingly complacent. Well, breathtakingly complacent from the HSE and, quite frankly, incompetent from the Environment Agency," he said.

"They didn't know what they were talking about. They don't understand oil and gas. They've never had to with [UK] oil companies being offshore and out of their scope and remit."

A key criticism Hill has is that these agencies – which are charged with health and safety, as well as environmental protection, in the UK – have been approaching the practice of fracking "with an offshore bent".

While acknowledging that the UK has sufficient regulations to ensure that its offshore oil and gas sector cannot cause another Deepwater Horizon or Exxon Valdez disaster, Hill believes that the problem with applying these same regulations onshore is that they do not take the public into account.

"There is no public offshore," he said.

"Cuadrilla is fracking 250 meters [820 feet] from the largest housing estate in Lytham St. Annes, with 2,000 homes on it. There is a public – a big one. And you can't ignore that fact."

"I live in the fracking zone. My kids live in the fracking zone. If this [activity] is properly regulated, I've no issue with it. I am not anti-fracking at all. But if you don't regulate this industry properly, introduce some specific onshore shale gas exploration regs and do proper inspections, then I do have a problem with it."

Hill, who has met with various government advisers involved with fracking (as well as Cuadrilla itself) several times during the past two years, has made it clear to them that he feels the offshore regulations developed in the 1990s, (following the North Sea’s Piper Alpha disaster in 1988) are not sufficient to address the issues with onshore drilling, exploration and production.

He wants to see regulations that cover the quality of cement used in onshore drilling, including onsite sampling and laboratory testing, along with several other regulations that will cover good safety practices such as: surface methane detection, post tremor actions, publication of which fracking chemicals are used at each well and the storage and disposal of flow-back water.

Hill also insists that well site inspections should be required and that they be random so that the Environment Agency or Health and Safety Executive can go and check which chemicals are being put down shale fracking wells "because, believe it or not, they don't check".

"You've got to have independent regulation. You can't just rely on self-regulation because, when push comes to shove, this is a very expensive business and if [a company] gets an issue that's going to cost it, say, three million pounds to resolve, or they can do it for 30,000 but in a slightly naughty manner, which option is it going to take when it knows categorically that no-one is inspecting and it absolutely won't be caught out? These are private companies that are there to make a profit."

The HSE confirmed to Rigzone that it made an inspection visit to Cuadrilla's Preese Hall and Grange Hill sites in March 2011 and that, as part of its well notification process, it has held six "inspection meetings" with Cuadrilla at both the firm's offices and at the HSE's own offices. The body also insists that it has well inspectors who "maintain regular contact" with Cuadrilla so that they are kept up to date with shale gas operations.

The HSE also made the point that well site visits, whether planned or unannounced, "can be of very limited value on their own in assessing well integrity and the management of well risks". Instead, it said that given the complexity of oil and gas wells "the key to well integrity inspection is to ensure that the operator is managing risks effectively throughout the life cycle of the well".

Hill is sticking to his guns, however, and believes a set of onshore drilling proper regulations are required to prevent a major incident.

"I think unless that happens we are going to have some sort of disaster at some point in time – our own version of Gaslands. There will be a public outcry and shale gas will then be banned in the UK. So we won't get that shale gas out of the ground and the UK won't benefit from the energy security it would provide."

A former engineer, Jon is an award-winning editor who has covered the technology, engineering and energy sectors since the mid-1990s. Email Jon at jmainwaring@rigzone.com.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

UK Fracking: A Safe Regulatory Environment?

Hydraulic fracturing operations are back on in the UK after the country's government declared in early December that it had lifted a temporary ban on the practice. But the controversy surrounding the safety of shale gas fracking has not gone away despite the announcement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Department of Energy and Climate Change would establish an Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil.

The news was followed in January by an announcement from Cuadrilla Resources that it plans to submit a planning application to Lancashire County Council, in northwest England, to conduct hydraulic fracturing and flow testing at a well site near the village of Banks. In December, Rigzone reported that the British Geological Society believes shale deposits in the Bowland Basin area of Lancashire could amount to 300 trillion cubic feet of gas.

One of the conditions for the UK government's relenting over shale gas fracking was that it would be subject to new controls to mitigate the risks of seismic activity.

Fracking was originally suspended in the UK in May 2011 after two small seismic tremors were detected in Lancashire near what was then the country's only fracking operation.

As a result, companies planning to carry out hydraulic fracking must now:

Conduct a prior review before fracking begins to assess seismic risk and the existence of faultsSubmit a fracking plan to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showing how seismic risks will be addressedCarry out seismic monitoring before, during and after fracking

The government also insists that a new traffic light system is employed to categorize seismic activity and direct appropriate responses, with a trigger mechanism being used to stop fracking operations in certain conditions.

Cuadrilla, meanwhile, appears to be taking the seismic issue very seriously. Late January, the company announced plans to install the same sensitive monitoring technology around its Anna's Road site that the company had already installed at the Banks site last year.

However, the new focus on monitoring seismic activity connected to fracking is not nearly enough to make the practice safe, according to several groups. As soon as the government decision to allow fracking was made in December, Friends of the Earth Executive Director Andy Atkins issued a statement in which he accused the government of being reckless and that the decision "threatens to contaminate our air and water".

Greenpeace UK added that Freedom of Information requests had revealed that the UK Environment Agency privately expressed fears to the government over threats to drinking water near proposed fracking sites in Sussex, England.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are two organizations fundamentally opposed to any technology that will see an increased use in fossil fuels – even if it means the increased use of natural gas (which is cleaner in terms of carbon emissions than oil and coal). But there are other voices, friendlier to the oil and gas industry, who believe that the government has got it wrong when it comes to its approach to fracking.

Mike Hill, an engineer who lives in the area where Cuadrilla is carrying out its fracking operations, has been lobbying the UK government for a more rigorous approach to regulating the activity. Having worked in the oil and gas sector himself, and now a director of Gemini Control & Automation, he takes a more sober view of fracking but wants to see operations thoroughly checked to ensure it is done safely.

"I got involved in this about two years ago simply because, when I heard that fracking was coming to the UK, I knew that if it is not regulated properly the risks are fairly high," he told Rigzone in a recent interview.

After getting in touch with the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency two years ago, Hill expected these bodies to be "very hot" when it came to regulating fracking.

"I was really expecting that was going to be the case but the responses I got at the time… were absolutely atrocious. It was breathtakingly complacent. Well, breathtakingly complacent from the HSE and, quite frankly, incompetent from the Environment Agency," he said.

"They didn't know what they were talking about. They don't understand oil and gas. They've never had to with [UK] oil companies being offshore and out of their scope and remit."

A key criticism Hill has is that these agencies – which are charged with health and safety, as well as environmental protection, in the UK – have been approaching the practice of fracking "with an offshore bent".

While acknowledging that the UK has sufficient regulations to ensure that its offshore oil and gas sector cannot cause another Deepwater Horizon or Exxon Valdez disaster, Hill believes that the problem with applying these same regulations onshore is that they do not take the public into account.

"There is no public offshore," he said.

"Cuadrilla is fracking 250 meters [820 feet] from the largest housing estate in Lytham St. Annes, with 2,000 homes on it. There is a public – a big one. And you can't ignore that fact."

"I live in the fracking zone. My kids live in the fracking zone. If this [activity] is properly regulated, I've no issue with it. I am not anti-fracking at all. But if you don't regulate this industry properly, introduce some specific onshore shale gas exploration regs and do proper inspections, then I do have a problem with it."

Hill, who has met with various government advisers involved with fracking (as well as Cuadrilla itself) several times during the past two years, has made it clear to them that he feels the offshore regulations developed in the 1990s, (following the North Sea’s Piper Alpha disaster in 1988) are not sufficient to address the issues with onshore drilling, exploration and production.

He wants to see regulations that cover the quality of cement used in onshore drilling, including onsite sampling and laboratory testing, along with several other regulations that will cover good safety practices such as: surface methane detection, post tremor actions, publication of which fracking chemicals are used at each well and the storage and disposal of flow-back water.

Hill also insists that well site inspections should be required and that they be random so that the Environment Agency or Health and Safety Executive can go and check which chemicals are being put down shale fracking wells "because, believe it or not, they don't check".

"You've got to have independent regulation. You can't just rely on self-regulation because, when push comes to shove, this is a very expensive business and if [a company] gets an issue that's going to cost it, say, three million pounds to resolve, or they can do it for 30,000 but in a slightly naughty manner, which option is it going to take when it knows categorically that no-one is inspecting and it absolutely won't be caught out? These are private companies that are there to make a profit."

The HSE confirmed to Rigzone that it made an inspection visit to Cuadrilla's Preese Hall and Grange Hill sites in March 2011 and that, as part of its well notification process, it has held six "inspection meetings" with Cuadrilla at both the firm's offices and at the HSE's own offices. The body also insists that it has well inspectors who "maintain regular contact" with Cuadrilla so that they are kept up to date with shale gas operations.

The HSE also made the point that well site visits, whether planned or unannounced, "can be of very limited value on their own in assessing well integrity and the management of well risks". Instead, it said that given the complexity of oil and gas wells "the key to well integrity inspection is to ensure that the operator is managing risks effectively throughout the life cycle of the well".

Hill is sticking to his guns, however, and believes a set of onshore drilling proper regulations are required to prevent a major incident.

"I think unless that happens we are going to have some sort of disaster at some point in time – our own version of Gaslands. There will be a public outcry and shale gas will then be banned in the UK. So we won't get that shale gas out of the ground and the UK won't benefit from the energy security it would provide."

A former engineer, Jon is an award-winning editor who has covered the technology, engineering and energy sectors since the mid-1990s. Email Jon at jmainwaring@rigzone.com.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

UK Fracking: A Safe Regulatory Environment?

Hydraulic fracturing operations are back on in the UK after the country's government declared in early December that it had lifted a temporary ban on the practice. But the controversy surrounding the safety of shale gas fracking has not gone away despite the announcement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Department of Energy and Climate Change would establish an Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil.

The news was followed in January by an announcement from Cuadrilla Resources that it plans to submit a planning application to Lancashire County Council, in northwest England, to conduct hydraulic fracturing and flow testing at a well site near the village of Banks. In December, Rigzone reported that the British Geological Society believes shale deposits in the Bowland Basin area of Lancashire could amount to 300 trillion cubic feet of gas.

One of the conditions for the UK government's relenting over shale gas fracking was that it would be subject to new controls to mitigate the risks of seismic activity.

Fracking was originally suspended in the UK in May 2011 after two small seismic tremors were detected in Lancashire near what was then the country's only fracking operation.

As a result, companies planning to carry out hydraulic fracking must now:

Conduct a prior review before fracking begins to assess seismic risk and the existence of faultsSubmit a fracking plan to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showing how seismic risks will be addressedCarry out seismic monitoring before, during and after fracking

The government also insists that a new traffic light system is employed to categorize seismic activity and direct appropriate responses, with a trigger mechanism being used to stop fracking operations in certain conditions.

Cuadrilla, meanwhile, appears to be taking the seismic issue very seriously. Late January, the company announced plans to install the same sensitive monitoring technology around its Anna's Road site that the company had already installed at the Banks site last year.

However, the new focus on monitoring seismic activity connected to fracking is not nearly enough to make the practice safe, according to several groups. As soon as the government decision to allow fracking was made in December, Friends of the Earth Executive Director Andy Atkins issued a statement in which he accused the government of being reckless and that the decision "threatens to contaminate our air and water".

Greenpeace UK added that Freedom of Information requests had revealed that the UK Environment Agency privately expressed fears to the government over threats to drinking water near proposed fracking sites in Sussex, England.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are two organizations fundamentally opposed to any technology that will see an increased use in fossil fuels – even if it means the increased use of natural gas (which is cleaner in terms of carbon emissions than oil and coal). But there are other voices, friendlier to the oil and gas industry, who believe that the government has got it wrong when it comes to its approach to fracking.

Mike Hill, an engineer who lives in the area where Cuadrilla is carrying out its fracking operations, has been lobbying the UK government for a more rigorous approach to regulating the activity. Having worked in the oil and gas sector himself, and now a director of Gemini Control & Automation, he takes a more sober view of fracking but wants to see operations thoroughly checked to ensure it is done safely.

"I got involved in this about two years ago simply because, when I heard that fracking was coming to the UK, I knew that if it is not regulated properly the risks are fairly high," he told Rigzone in a recent interview.

After getting in touch with the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency two years ago, Hill expected these bodies to be "very hot" when it came to regulating fracking.

"I was really expecting that was going to be the case but the responses I got at the time… were absolutely atrocious. It was breathtakingly complacent. Well, breathtakingly complacent from the HSE and, quite frankly, incompetent from the Environment Agency," he said.

"They didn't know what they were talking about. They don't understand oil and gas. They've never had to with [UK] oil companies being offshore and out of their scope and remit."

A key criticism Hill has is that these agencies – which are charged with health and safety, as well as environmental protection, in the UK – have been approaching the practice of fracking "with an offshore bent".

While acknowledging that the UK has sufficient regulations to ensure that its offshore oil and gas sector cannot cause another Deepwater Horizon or Exxon Valdez disaster, Hill believes that the problem with applying these same regulations onshore is that they do not take the public into account.

"There is no public offshore," he said.

"Cuadrilla is fracking 250 meters [820 feet] from the largest housing estate in Lytham St. Annes, with 2,000 homes on it. There is a public – a big one. And you can't ignore that fact."

"I live in the fracking zone. My kids live in the fracking zone. If this [activity] is properly regulated, I've no issue with it. I am not anti-fracking at all. But if you don't regulate this industry properly, introduce some specific onshore shale gas exploration regs and do proper inspections, then I do have a problem with it."

Hill, who has met with various government advisers involved with fracking (as well as Cuadrilla itself) several times during the past two years, has made it clear to them that he feels the offshore regulations developed in the 1990s, (following the North Sea’s Piper Alpha disaster in 1988) are not sufficient to address the issues with onshore drilling, exploration and production.

He wants to see regulations that cover the quality of cement used in onshore drilling, including onsite sampling and laboratory testing, along with several other regulations that will cover good safety practices such as: surface methane detection, post tremor actions, publication of which fracking chemicals are used at each well and the storage and disposal of flow-back water.

Hill also insists that well site inspections should be required and that they be random so that the Environment Agency or Health and Safety Executive can go and check which chemicals are being put down shale fracking wells "because, believe it or not, they don't check".

"You've got to have independent regulation. You can't just rely on self-regulation because, when push comes to shove, this is a very expensive business and if [a company] gets an issue that's going to cost it, say, three million pounds to resolve, or they can do it for 30,000 but in a slightly naughty manner, which option is it going to take when it knows categorically that no-one is inspecting and it absolutely won't be caught out? These are private companies that are there to make a profit."

The HSE confirmed to Rigzone that it made an inspection visit to Cuadrilla's Preese Hall and Grange Hill sites in March 2011 and that, as part of its well notification process, it has held six "inspection meetings" with Cuadrilla at both the firm's offices and at the HSE's own offices. The body also insists that it has well inspectors who "maintain regular contact" with Cuadrilla so that they are kept up to date with shale gas operations.

The HSE also made the point that well site visits, whether planned or unannounced, "can be of very limited value on their own in assessing well integrity and the management of well risks". Instead, it said that given the complexity of oil and gas wells "the key to well integrity inspection is to ensure that the operator is managing risks effectively throughout the life cycle of the well".

Hill is sticking to his guns, however, and believes a set of onshore drilling proper regulations are required to prevent a major incident.

"I think unless that happens we are going to have some sort of disaster at some point in time – our own version of Gaslands. There will be a public outcry and shale gas will then be banned in the UK. So we won't get that shale gas out of the ground and the UK won't benefit from the energy security it would provide."

A former engineer, Jon is an award-winning editor who has covered the technology, engineering and energy sectors since the mid-1990s. Email Jon at jmainwaring@rigzone.com.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

Forestalling a ‘Regulatory Avalanche’

John Felmy, API’s chief economist, talked to reporters this week about a looming federal “regulatory avalanche” that could impact the production of oil and natural gas from shale – and reduce the president’s State of the Union call for increased domestic production to hot air:

“On the one hand we have President Obama saying he supports natural gas development. … Within weeks of making this statement, the administration has done just the opposite, announcing several plans to further constrain development, reducing opportunities to produce our domestic supply of oil and natural gas and create and support these American jobs. We have reached a point where our industry’s efforts to produce the natural gas the president says he wants are being overwhelmed by an avalanche of acronyms. EPA, DOE, DOI, USDA, DOD, DOT, SEC, HHS – eight federal agencies in all – are looking at hydraulic fracturing.”

Felmy said the chilling effect on decision-making and investment isn’t dependent on concrete regulatory proposals:

“Some of these investigations or studies have no specific timeline, yet information continues to be shared with the press about how further studies and stricter regulation are being prepared. All this adds to a state of uncertainty and generates fear for which there is no evidence.”

Fear = potential delay, which has a tangible effect on energy development and job creation. Felmy:

“Every day that goes by that we don’t develop this resource is another day that someone doesn’t get a job.”

A couple of other takes on the Felmy briefing:

Oil & Gas Journal:

“This is a prospective regulatory avalanche. Right now, there’s no transparency or indication of prospective outcomes,” Felmy continued. “If they don’t coordinate and aren’t transparent, the results could be negative for American energy.” Felmy said API has no quantitative estimate of possible economic consequences because so many federal departments and agencies have entered the federal oil and gas regulatory picture. “We don’t know the actual inner workings, only that all these agencies are involved,” he said. “Some have had regulatory coverage for a long time. Others haven’t. Are they coordinated? Do they have timelines? That’s our main concern.”

The Oklahoman:

“We are calling on Congress to halt the administration drive toward over-regulation of hydraulic fracturing and commercial oil and natural gas production,” he said. Felmy said the industry is ready to work with the administration to ensure the U.S. becomes more energy self-sufficient as safely as possible."

View the original article here