State Rep. Neil Abramson took a few minutes out of the House Civil Law and Procedure committee he chairs last week to point out that Jimmy Faircloth called him from the floor of the Louisiana House of Representatives and tried to intimidate him in “a secluded corner” of the State Capitol.

Abramson sponsors House Bill 618, which is a legislative fix to legacy lawsuits that oil companies back but landowners do not. It is the first of more than a dozen legacy lawsuit bills to clear committee and will be voted on by the full House later this week.

Faircloth, the governor’s former executive counsel who now is representing large private landowners in legacy lawsuit debate, answered by saying he was only alerting Abramson, as a courtesy, of possible future attacks. Copies of Abramson’s resume have been making the rounds over various news outlets during the past few weeks.

Abramson is a shareholder in a New Orleans law firm and defends oil companies against landowners’ legacy lawsuits. Faircloth said some could construe that as a conflict of interest.

Abramson responded that legislators routinely handle bills for the industry in which they work because they have the knowledge of the industry’s nuances and officials, plus it is legal.

Later in the week Baton Rouge lawyer Don Carmouche, who represents landowners in legacy lawsuits, held a press conference to announce he was filing a complaint against Abramson with the Board of Ethics. Officials with the ethics board are legally forbidden from commenting on such complaints.

Original Article

Oil giant BP has “learned its lesson” from the massive 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the co-chairman of a commission that investigated the disaster said Sunday.

“I believe BP is a transforming culture,” William Reilly, the co-chairman of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, said during an interview with Platts Energy Week.

The interview comes just days after the two-year anniversary of the spill, which dumped 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf and resulted in the death of 11 rig workers.

Reilly, a Republican who led the Environmental Protection Agency under former President George H.W. Bush, said BP has made “very significant progress” in improving drilling safety.

“What I hear from people that are working with them in the field is that they are scrupulous about applying new rigorous standards of oversight,” Reilly, who was a vocal critic of BP in the aftermath of the spill, said.

Reilly said BP requires stringent oversight of its drilling procedures, noting that it is the first company to require double shear rams for blow-out preventers.

“I think it’s a company that learned its lesson. I mean it should have, it had a $100 billion market cap destruction and undetermined yet total cost as a result of fines and penalties,” he said. “But yes, I believe they deserve a lot of credit.”

President Obama charged the oil spill commission with investigating the disaster in May 2010. After months of work, the panel issued a report in early 2011 that recommended a series of sweeping improvements both within the federal government and the oil industry.

The commission, which was also headed by former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), disbanded in March 2011, but reformed earlier this year as “Oil Spill Commission Action” to ensure its recommendations are not forgotten.

The group released a report earlier this week that criticized Congress for not taking more action to address problems identified by the commission.

Reilly, in the interview Sunday, specifically criticized House Republicans for not acting on the commission’s recommendations.

He said they were often “contemptuous of the commission” and dismissive of the work that the members of the panel had done.

“We expected a little better treatment,” Reilly said, defending the commission’s work.

“It was necessary,” he said. “It was an appropriate response and I think now the country is better off for it.”

Original Article

If you want to join the fight against imported oil, you’ll have to pay to enter.

But stay long enough, and you may get your money back.

General Motors has announced that its upcoming line of compressed natural gas-capable pickup trucks will cost $11,000 more than the standard vehicles they are based on. The bi-fuel Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra 2500 HD trucks can run on either CNG or, for situations when it’s not available, gasoline.

Pricing on the conventional Silverado and Sierra HDs starts at around $40,000.

The 6.0-liter V8-powered extended cab bi-fuel models will come in long or short bed versions and with rear or all-wheel-drive. A tank for the CNG takes up a large section of the forward part of the bed, but the vehicles are otherwise identical to their single-fuel stablemates.

The bi-fuel vehicles are available for retail sale, but will be targeted at fleet managers looking to lower their fuel costs. CNG prices vary widely state to state, but the current national average for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline is $1.89. According to GM, an operator could save $10,000 in fuel costs per truck over three years.

Although the public CNG refueling infrastructure is limited, retail buyers can have a small pump installed at home, while fleet operators often have commercial refueling stations installed on their lots. CNG-powered vehicles boast lower emissions than their gasoline and diesel counterparts, and nearly all of the gas used in the United States is sourced from North America.

Chrysler’s Ram division is also offering a bi-fuel versions of its heavy duty pickup this year that carries a premium of about $11,000 over the standard models, as well.

GM will start taking orders for the Chevy and GMC pickups on April 19th, with deliveries scheduled for the end of the year.

Original Article

The two-year anniversary of the Macondo oil well blow out and the subsequent six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico marks a moment for reflection among the businesses at Port Fourchon.

The port, located at the state’s southernmost habitable tip, is considered the epicenter for oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The sprawling, 1,700 -acre port is home to 250 companies. It serves as a throughway for more than 15 percent of the nation’s oil supply, according to the Greater Lafourche Port Commission. The port is estimated to generate $4 million in business sales and $950,000 in household earnings throughout south Louisiana.

And about 2,505 workers in the state were let go as a result of the ban, according to a state tally last year of people who filed for unemployment and checked a box saying the drilling moratorium had left them jobless.

The slowdown in drilling has not had a lasting effect on large oil companies, which simply picked up their rigs and temporarily moved them to less regulated international markets. It is the service industries, providing everything from equipment rental to vessels and catering, that were hit hardest by the ban. But now they, too, are coming back.

The C Port yard used to be so crowded with containers you couldn’t see where the boats docked. But until a few months ago, it was so empty that you could see straight through to the ocean. Delmar Systems’ yard had the opposite problem. There were hundreds of giant spools of wire and threaded rope sitting in the yard. Two years before, they had been used to moor oil platforms through as much as 9,000 feet of water depth in the Gulf.

Mac Nett Environmental Services, a truck tank cleaning company, moved services from Fourchon to its headquarters in Baton Rouge a year ago and still hasn’t returned.

“We have an office down there, but there’s nobody in it,” said Troy Tucker, a manager at Mac Nett. “Customers down there call ahead of time if they need us, and we’ll come down, but there isn’t enough to merit us staying down there. We’ve been doing a lot of work out of Baton Rouge until the oilfield comes picking up a little bit.”

FOLLOW THE WORK

For Delmar Systems Inc., an offshore mooring company offering planning, equipment management and implementation services, the loss of rigs offshore has meant far less business at its Port Fourchon facility.

Brady Como, the company’s executive vice president, said when the moratorium hit the Gulf of Mexico, moored rigs were the first to go. Energy companies moved them to other locations when they couldn’t drill in the Gulf. While deepwater permitting has been catching up to pre-spill levels in recent months, most rigs are still contracted to drill elsewhere and can’t return to the Gulf until their current commitments expire.

“When the work leaves town, you have to follow the work,” said Como, of the rigs that moved to Brazil, Australia, the Mediterranean, West Africa and other markets. Delmar is an international company, with offices worldwide, but Fourchon is one of its largest yards.

“We had contracts in place to provide services for these companies here, but when they go international, suddenly the logistics change. Your whole basis of doing business has changed,” he said. “We have offices in some of these other places so moving personnel and equipment to these regions present their unique challenges.”

The company has been sending mooring equipment from Fourchon to rigs contracted in foreign waters. Though drilling numbers are returning to normal, more of those rigs use dynamic positioning rather than traditional mooring anchors.

“When those rigs leave, those jobs go with them,” Como said of a port-wide phenomenon.

Surviving the ban presented more challenges for service companies without an international network. Allport Services, a dockside service provider, had been in business for weeks before the Macondo well blowout.

“I didn’t have much of a client base yet,” said Dwayne Rebstock, the company’s founder. “I’m one of the few independently owned companies out here. We don’t have a corporate office to fall back on, but bigger companies have a lot of overhead.”

Rebstock said his company had to diversify to stay alive, by outfitting barges with residential facilities for spill response workers, and offering more maintenance and repair work.

“It never came to a complete halt,” he said.

Robert Socha, vice president of sales and marketing for Bollinger Shipyards, said his company also used the spill to its advantage.

“After the oil spill, activity at Fourchon came to a crawl. We were fortunate in that we were able to get a contract,” he said. “Our repair and conversion work came to a standstill, because there was no drilling and production activity in the region. Our main focus changed the repair yard into a spill response logistics place.”

STEADY

Moran’s Marina is a destination for both tourists and the workers at Fourchon. Directly after the spill, the gas station, convenience store and deli on La. 1 suffered a loss, but business remained somewhat steady, said Jocelyn Connell, who has been working at the marina’s deli counter for about a year.

She grew up on Grand Isle, and says other tourism spots in her hometown haven’t been as lucky.

“We’ve actually been very blessed,” she said. “We’ve been able to offer a service for people to give them a place to go.”

The 24-hour deli draws in regular oil rig roughnecks who watch television and dine on po-boys, fried chicken or burgers, as well as tourists interested in deepwater charter fishing. Winters can be slow during the off-season, she said, but this one has remained steady, which might be a sign that work in the Gulf is picking up.

“A lot of the regulars are people who come in from out of town, who come here to work,” she said.

At the height of the drilling ban, Bollinger moved one of its drydocks to its Sulphur facility. Last month, it moved it back to Fourchon, to help service smaller vessels. Socha said that’s a sign that business is picking up.

“But it’s not to the level it was before the spill,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is diversify our customer base, and continue to try to broaden that customer base.”

Business at Allport has also picked up. At the height of the moratorium, Rebstock had to fire about 20 percent of his 30-person staff. Now, he has more than 35 employees and contractors working at his 19-acre yard.

Chett Chiasson, the executive director of Port Fourchon, said he’s seen a dramatic increase in activity in the Gulf of Mexico recently, though shallow water drilling levels are still low.

“Our business is inching back to the 100-percent mark, and all indications suggest we’re going to surpass that by the end of this year,” he said.

Chiasson added that the port continues to build Slip C, a new 400-acre development which already has a lease promised to Edison Chouest Offshore, and is in negotiations with Guidry Brothers Inc., a division of Harvey Gulf International Marine.

“That’s giving us a lot of excitement for the future. This region is going to be in pretty good shape,” he said.

Original Article

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday approved the first large-scale liquefied natural gas export terminal in the lower 48 states despite record falling gas prices. Shipping from the $10 billion Louisiana plant is projected to begin as early as 2015. The Cheniere plant is the third liquefied natural gas plant in the works in Louisiana. Others are planned elsewhere in the country.

The plants aren’t without criticism. Some say plants like Cheniere’s could raise natural gas prices in the country and have adverse environmental effects — due in part to the rise in the use of a controversial natural gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. As of March, 24 states in the U.S.have enacted or have pending legislature regulating drilling for natural gas by way of hydraulic fracturing.

While the government of Nova Scotia is delaying hydraulic fracturing pending further review, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the first-ever rules to control pollution from “fracked” natural gas wells Wednesday. The agency indicated it would delay enforcing the rule until 2015, more than two years later than its initial proposal of July.

Fuel Fix

Oil prices fell following Iran nuclear talks and amid announcements oil supplies grew by 3.9 million barrels last week. Meanwhile, President Obama proposed tougher measures to fight the manipulation of oil markets. The move comes in response to claims investors — not supply and demand — are driving up oil prices.

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner made the first biofuel-powered flight over the Pacific Ocean this week, while others in Canada and Australia made similar flights using the alternative energy source. In the lab, NASA is exploring ways to use algae to make biofuel, while a new corn-based biofuel could be pack more energy than ethanol.

Though the thin-film solar market is declining, Bloomberg reports these panels may actually outperform crystalline products in warmer climates. The Los Angeles Times says solar panels are — along with hot sauce, self tanning products and 3D printers — the fastest-growing industries in the U.S.

The French company Total ramped up efforts this week to stem a nearly month-long leak of oil at its Elgin platform in the North Sea. Meanwhile, researchers are making strides in technology aimed at cleaning up future spills, including using sonar to test the effectiveness of deep-sea oil dispersants.

Melting Arctic Brings Threat of New Cold War

Militaries of the world are preparing for a new type of Cold War in divvying up the melting Arctic, which may hold 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the planet’s untapped natural gas. As the Arctic ice recedes, some rogue glaciers in the Himalayas actually are growing, defying predictions that the planet’s “third pole,” as the region is known, would be completely melted by 2035.

Many Americans attribute recent warming and some extreme weather events to climate change, according to a new poll. In fact, 69 percent polled agree global warming is affecting weather in the U.S., despite a new study that finds climate coverage is declining on some broadcast networks.

As California prepares to implement a cap on carbon emissions, its southern neighbor is following suit with a clean climate law. Mexico’s new climate law would lower emissions 30 percent by 2020 and cut them in half by 2050. The move comes as the EPA reports that greenhouse gas emissions, stalled by the recession, are on the rise with the U.S. recovery. Similarly, in the UK officials reported emissions rose 3.1 percent as the economy recovered.

As major U.S. newspapers continue to bleed off environmental reporters, the RAND Corporation says canceling the newspaper can save energy. A single print subscription emits 208 pounds of global warming gases per year, whereas the online version only emits 54 pounds per year. But cloud computing can be a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, NPR reports.

Original Article

Ed Anderson, The Times-Picayune

BATON ROUGE — An attorney for landowners who are fighting oil companies over the cleanup of property leased for drilling or production filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans. Abramson called the filing unfounded.

The two-page complaint, filed by Don Carmouche, a trial lawyer who has lobbied the Legislature for landowners’ interests and fought the oil companies for years, said that Abramson is the author of several bills that would help his New Orleans law firm, which represents oil companies.

Ethics officials by law cannot confirm or deny if a complaint has been filed or comment on a possible investigation.

The complaint alleges that Abramson, chairman of the House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure, the panel hearing some of the landowner vs. oil company bills, is an employee and shareholder of Liskow and Lewis in New Orleans.

The complaint says that Abramson’s firm represents “Exxon and BP who are  defendants in many of the suits now pending” in state and federal courts. Carmouche said that with Abramson handling bills that could help his law firm and their clients, he has a conflict of interest.

Carmouche said that state law prohibits a lawmaker “from participating in transactions involving the Legislature in which he or his employer have a substantial economic interest.”

“I have done nothing improper,” Abramson said. “I am not personally profiting in any way. I know there is no conflict of interest or violation of the law.”

He said his law firm represents “a whole gamut of clients,” not just oil companies. He said one of his bills is designed to hold the oil industry responsible “to go out and clean up” sites.

If it passes, he said, “I realize a few trial lawyers may not make as much money as they want.”

Original Article

The Environmental Protection Agency once again invited itself to do tangible economic harm—this time to the hydraulic fracturing that is transforming American energy—and somehow . . . it didn’t. In the annals of the unlikely, the EPA’s new fracking rules fall somewhere between a Nobel Peace Prize for George W. Bush and a supply-side tax plan from Warren Buffett.

The first-ever federal fracking rule that the EPA released on Wednesday is also the first time the agency has shown restraint under the Clean Air Act since at least 2005 or 2006, about when the Bush Administration gave up on environmental regulatory reform. Given the agency’s track record, any self-control is notable—though in particular on the unconventional oil and gas extraction that the green lobby would prefer to shut down because those fuels contain demon carbon.

After a shale well has been tapped, trace amounts of natural gas, fracking fluids or a combination of both can escape, and the EPA’s standards are targeted at such traditional air pollutants as methane or volatile organic compounds. Starting in 2015, the 588-page rule requires drillers to use technologies and practices that result in so-called “green completions” that limit emissions.

The EPA is basically requiring operators to do what they’re doing anyway: Most wellheads and pipelines already exceed the EPA benchmark. One reason is that methane is the largest component of natural gas, so emitting more methane means losing more of the product that companies are trying to sell. The pollution control technologies the EPA is mandating didn’t exist a few years ago and were developed by the industry for economic reasons.

The reality is that as fracking booms through the Appalachian basin, the South and mountain West, the early wildcatting days are over. Operators are professional and best practices are spreading. The industry understands that the environmentalists and political class don’t need much pretext to impose a moratorium, as New York state liberals have.

The EPA has a habit of abusing the Clean Air Act, a notoriously costly and flawed law to begin with, and why it didn’t here is something of a mystery. Our guess is that the White House exercised adult supervision amid re-election season, knowing that another assault on the domestic oil and gas surge could be a political loser. The Obamateers already gave at the political office with their anticoal campaign and killing the Keystone XL pipeline, so the greens can’t really complain, though as always they will.

The main problem with the rule is precedent. The Clean Air Act is designed to encourage environmental groups to sue the EPA, and after they do the EPA then files more stringent rules that the bureaucracy favored in the first place in order to get the greens to drop their suits. Rinse and repeat. That may be the longer post-election game the EPA has in mind against fracking.

These drilling operations have also traditionally been regulated by the states, which can point with pride to a generally sound record. Try as the EPA has, the fracking pollution the agency has claimed to uncover in Wyoming and elsewhere has turned out to be either small or hyped. But with this new rule, 10 separate federal agencies on top of the EPA will add a second layer of oversight. The EPA’s rules may be achievable, but they’re redundant.

The agency nonetheless had the opportunity to ruin or substantially damage the most important U.S. energy breakthrough in decades. The astonishing news is that it didn’t.

Original Article