CALL TO ACTION: Secretary Ken Salazar (NGP Photo) made a verbal, arbitrary ruling to include Alaska's shallow water OCS in.jpg "Ken Salazar")
his Gulf of Mexico deep water moratorium. We know that his decision to lift that misplaced moratorium will be a life or death sentence on Alaska's oil fired economy. And the decision will be based in large part on advice from two of his appointees meeting in Anchorage tonight to 'listen' to you. They will not listen if you do not speak. Here is our report of Chancellor Ulmer's last listening session. Please come: see instructions below:
Who: William K. Reilly, co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, and University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor Fran Ulmer (NGP Photo), a member of the commission. Steve MacDonald (NGP Photo-below), KTUU's News Director will moderate.
What: Listening session to hear from Alaskans who have experience and/or expertise in oil spill response and recovery and would like to share their ideas.
When: 5 - 7 p.m., today, September 8, 2010.
Where: UAA/APU Consortium Library, Room 307, University of Alaska Anchorage.
Why: President Obama's National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling is investigating the causes of the explosion and recommending changes to prevent future disasters. (By coincidence, we obtained BP's internal report, issued just this morning. Scroll down. -dh)
Comment: Here is our written comment delivered at Chancellor Ulmer's earlier 'listening session'. Judging from Governor Sean Parnell's (NGP Photo) ongoing resistance to onerous Federal overreach of authority in Alaska (and appearance of DEC Commissioner Larry Hartig with Oil and Gas Director Kevin Banks in the recent BOEM hearing), we hope for the Administration's appearance tonight. We are equally hopeful for appearance of legislators to show solidarity. We hope for bi-partisan support. At the BOEM hearing we noted attendance of a number of republican lawmakers, no democrats. Tonight, we'd love to see the republicans and democrats turn out in force to face democrat appointed Commissioners. We hope to see many oil company experts tonight--those whose families have most at stake.
((Reference: Click here, to read our BOEM background story in full: On June 23, Secretary Salazar said in an Appropriations Committee meeting in answer to questioning by Senator Lisa Murkowski that the moratorium does apply to Alaska, even though Alaska's OCS programs involve shallow water activity in less that 200'. -dh)
Below is a letter a reader sent to us dispatched yesterday by Representative Craig Johnson (NGP Photo-r) to Members of the House and Senate.
Dear Fellow Legislators:
I wanted to inform you that there will be a meeting tomorrow evening in Anchorage of potentially great significance to Alaska’s future. William Reilly, co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, and University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor Fran Ulmer, a member of the commission, will hold a panel discussion and “listening session” from 5-7 p.m. regarding Gulf oil spill recovery and response ideas at the UAA/APU Consortium Library, Room 307, University of Alaska Anchorage.
UAA’s Gunnar Knapp ( ISER) and UAF’s Michael Castellini (School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences) will participate in a panel moderated by KTUU’s Steve McDonald from 5-5:30 pm. Following the panel discussion, the public will be allowed to testify regarding spill response and recovery from 5:30-7:00 pm. Public testimony will be limited to 3-4 minutes.
The stated purpose of the Anchorage session will be to hear from Alaskans who have experience or expertise in oil spill response and recovery who would like to share their ideas.
I would respectfully suggest that each of us as legislators has experience and expertise on the topic of oil spill response and recovery given our State’s decades of experience with the Trans Alaska Pipeline, Cook Inlet oil and gas exploration and development, and the more recent Shell Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) explorations. I think it’s important that there be a strong legislative presence at this meeting and encourage all who can to attend and testify. The importance of Alaska OCS exploration and development to Alaska’s future cannot be overstated. It’s estimated that fully 1/3 of our Nation’s remaining oil and gas reserves are in Alaska’s OCS – which contains an estimates 27 billion barrels of oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That’s more than twice the amount of oil that has been produced from the North Slope since it went into production in 1977.
Alaska’s proven track record, both on and offshore, has demonstrated that oil and gas exploration and development can be done in an environmentally responsible manner. This Commission and the Obama Administration needs to hear that message loud and clear. It is highly unlikely that there will be another opportunity for our voices to be heard by members of this Presidential Commission.
Similar to the poorly noticed OCS meeting held in Anchorage Aug 26th by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE); and Secretary of Interior Salazar’s closed and hurried visit to Alaska just last week; this public meeting at UAA has been called on very short notice. Notice of this meeting appeared in this Saturday’s Anchorage Daily News (Aug 4th):
For more information on the meeting please see :
or the ADN story:
Sincerely,
Representative Craig Johnson
Co-Chair, House Resources Committee
TODAY'S REPORT FROM BP:
Today BP released our internal investigation report regarding the Deepwater Horizon Incident. If you would like to download the report or watch a short presentation, please go to: www.bp.com. For further context, please see below.
Immediately following the tragic accident involving the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010, BP Exploration & Production Inc. commissioned an independent, non-privileged investigation into the accident.
From the beginning, we have made clear that we would share the results of this investigation widely so that everyone could learn from this incident. I am writing to let you know that, consistent with that commitment, today BP has released the full investigation report publicly. The report and its appendices are available at
www.bp.com along with an accompanying video.
The four-month investigation was led by Mark Bly, BP Group Head of Safety and Operations. It was conducted independent of BP’s Gulf of Mexico business and carried out by a team of more than 50 specialists across a variety of fields and from both inside and outside the company.
The report concludes that no single factor caused the tragedy and that decisions made by multiple companies and work teams contributed to the accident, which the report says was the culmination of “a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces.”
The report’s key findings on the cause of the accident are (Read more, below):
- The cement and shoe track barriers – and in particular the cement slurry that was used – at the bottom of the Macondo well failed to contain hydrocarbons within the reservoir, as they were designed to do, and allowed gas and liquids to flow up the production casing;
- The results of the negative pressure test were incorrectly accepted by BP and Transocean, although well integrity had not been established;
- Over a 40-minute period, the Transocean rig crew failed to recognize and act on the influx of hydrocarbons into the well until the hydrocarbons were in the riser and rapidly flowing to the surface;
- After the well-flow reached the rig it was routed to a mud-gas separator, causing gas to be vented directly on to the rig rather than being diverted overboard;
- The flow of gas into the engine rooms through the ventilation system created a potential for ignition which the rig’s fire and gas system did not prevent;
- Even after explosion and fire had disabled its crew-operated controls, the rig’s blow-out preventer on the sea-bed should have activated automatically to seal the well. But it failed to operate, probably because critical components were not working.
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