Guest “He fought the law and the law won,” by David Middleton
Days after climate talks, U.S. to hold huge crude oil sale in the Gulf of Mexico
By — Matthew Brown, Associated Press
By — Janet McConnaughey, Associated Press
Economy Nov 16, 2021 6:30 PM EST
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday will auction vast oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico estimated to hold up to 1.1 billion barrels of crude, the first such sale under President Joe Biden and a harbinger of the challenges he faces to reach climate goals that depend on deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions.The livestreamed sale will invite energy companies to bid on drilling leases across some 136,000 square miles (352,000 square kilometers) — about twice the area of Florida.
It will take years to develop the leases before companies start pumping crude. That means they could keep producing long past 2030, when scientists say the world needs to be well on the way to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change.
[…]
The auction comes after a federal judge in a lawsuit brought by Republican states rejected a suspension of fossil fuel sales that Biden imposed when he first took office.
[…]
PBS
A couple of points:
- No “reserves” are being auctioned off.
- This bit is fracking hilarious:
That means they could keep producing long past 2030, when scientists say the world needs to be well on the way to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Larry the Cable Guy would say:
OCS Sale 257 was held today. This was the first Gulf of Mexico lease sale since the current occupant of the White House illegally halted Federal lease sales a few days into his maladministration.
About 300 leases received bids, mostly deepwater tracts.
- Lease Sale Map – Bid Distribution (November 17, 2021): pdf file
- Active Leases and Bids Received Map (November 17, 2021): pdf file
- Blocks Receiving Bids (November 17, 2021)
Oddly enough, ExxonMobil submitted bids on 94 blocks on the shelf (shallow water). My hunch is that the ExxonMobil bids in the Brazos, Galveston and High Island areas are related to this…
ExxonMobil’s Oswald advocates for CCS hub in Houston
BY NANCY FORD NOVEMBER 16, 2021 10:52 AMThe necessity to reduce carbon emissions and arrest its deleterious impact on the health of the planet is one of the main drivers of the “energy transition.”
Energy transition is a term that is used differently by different people, said Eric Oswald, vice president of strategy development and advocacy for ExxonMobil’s Low Carbon Solutions business.
“A lot of markets are talking about greenhouse gas emissions,” Oswald noted. The Houston marketplace, he said, is “interested in greenhouse gas emissions, but we’re also interested in helping Houston win the energy transition.”
A Houston-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) hub would propel Houston to win that transition, he said.
[…]
The project envisions approximately 100 million metric tons of CO2 being captured per year, Oswald said. A project of that scale requires the cooperation and collaboration of industry, government and the at-large community.
[…]
BIC Magazine
The leases are in three clusters offshore of major concentrations of petrochemical plants and refineries. The High Island and Galveston clusters are along the boundary between Federal and Texas state waters. The Brazos cluster is a little farther offshore. All three clusters are well positioned to take advantage of massive Miocene saline aquifers with thick marine shale top seals. I wouldn’t be surprised if ExxonMobil lobbies the Federal government to convert these oil & gas leases into CCS concessions.
There’s something even more fracking hilarious in the AP article:
Environmental reviews of the Gulf of Mexico sale conducted under former President Donald Trump and affirmed under Biden reached an unlikely conclusion: Extracting and burning the fuel would result in fewer greenhouse gases than leaving it in the ground.
Similar claims in two other cases, in Alaska, were rejected by federal courts after challenges from environmentalists. Climate scientist Peter Erickson — whose work was cited by judges in one of the cases — said the Interior Department’s analysis had a glaring omission: They left out greenhouse gas increases in foreign countries that would result from having more Gulf oil on the market.
“The math is extremely simple on this kind of stuff,” said Erickson, a senior scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute, a nonprofit research group headquartered in Sweden. “If new leases expand the global oil supply, that has a proportional effect on emissions from burning oil. Therefore, giving out these leases in the Gulf of Mexico would be increasing global emissions.”
PBS
The original conclusion is correct. US Gulf of Mexico Deepwater oil production has a smaller “carbon footprint” per barrel of oil produced than all but one major oil producer/producing region.
Could restricting oil production in the US Gulf of Mexico lead to carbon leakage?
Federal actions have put the comparative emissions performance of the prolific US Gulf of Mexico under the spotlightBy Mark Oberstoetter, Head of Americas (non-L48) Upstream Research, and Mfon Usoro, Senior Research Analyst, US Gulf of Mexico Upstream
12 April 2021
As one of the few major oil producing areas under federal purview, the Gulf of Mexico appears to be a focal point of President Biden’s efforts to deliver swiftly on campaign promises. But while leasing bans and increasing royalties signal fast action on the energy transition, federal actions have consequences – and they can be global.
An important and unintended consequence of enacting more restrictive policies such as a lease ban or increase in royalty rate in the Gulf of Mexico is that it could give rise to carbon leakage to countries that export crude to US. Carbon leakage occurs when the greenhouse gas emissions from industrial production are transferred outside a regulated region to another area with weaker emissions constraints in place.
Despite the growth in domestic production, the US still imports six million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil from foreign countries. If production from the Gulf of Mexico drops, that figure is likely to increase substantially. Overall emissions will then depend on regulations and controls in the countries from which that oil is imported. In essence, climate change is a global issue and removing or handicapping a low emitter hurts the collective global average.
How emissions-intensive is the US Gulf of Mexico?
US Gulf of Mexico deepwater emissions are less intensive than all but one importer: Saudi Arabia. And more than half of the area’s 2021 production will come from a public corporation with an existing net-zero pledge.
[…]
Wood Mackenzie
The world isn’t going to consume less oil if Biden successfully manages to reduce oil production from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s just going to consume more oil produced from other basins & plays. Over 2/3 of the bids are for deepwater blocks, with their very low “carbon footprint.” Most of the bids are near existing infrastructure and any discoveries will likely be subsea tiebacks to existing production facilities. If ExxonMobil is really serious about establishing a 100 MTPA CCS mega-facility in the Federal waters, offshore Texas… This lease sale might just be “carbon neutral”. 100 MTPA of CO2 sequestration would fully offset the Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions from about 200 million barrels of oil per year, about 550,000 bbl/d, about 1/3 of the average total GOM production in 2020.
“The math is extremely simple on this kind of stuff,” said Erickson, a senior scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute, a nonprofit research group headquartered in Sweden.
PBS
The math is extremely simple. It’s so simple that Mr. Erickson has earned a Ron White Lifetime Achievement Award.
Regarding Biden’s losing battle with the law… I think this is a perfect spot for The Clash…
you really cannot fix lying stupids either.
If Putin was running White House I would say it’s clever plan: collect money from oligarchs now, ban offshore drilling and exploitation by 2030, WH banned Alaska KS etc already.
So Biden is not that bright, maybe it is Camalla’s plot, she is planning to be in WH in 2024, perhaps a lesson or two from Vlad might come useful. Commies know how to have their cake and eat it.
“maybe it is Camalla’s plot”
Kamala isn’t smart enough to be plotting. Maybe one of her handlers.
The oil companies have to know that outright bans will always be a possibility.
I’m wondering if the bids are going to be suppressed because of that.
I wonder why there are no crude wind sales?
Camilla’s aides were not quick enough?
We need some BigOilBob idiocracy about how we only have 10…I mean 9 years left.
And of course the pack of clowns calling itself the Biden Administration is investigating the oil companies for price fixing. It cannot be their own actions raising prices, no way!
After cancelling Keystone XL, Trump’s Arctic leases, and drilling on federal lands, that claim was especially ironic. Especially while simultaneously begging OPEC to increase production, which they didn’t.
Biden really is senile.
that goes without saying
whats worse though is the American public are collaborators by allowing the Democrats to get away with this
I’m sure most of the American public were not expecting the debacle the Biden administration is turning out to be.
Unfortunately, we can’t hold elections immediately to change the situation, but I’m certain the Democrats will lose their political stanglehold with the next election. So we just have to be patient, and fight back in the meantime as best we can.
You give the senile old goat too much credit. I believe Mr. Joe Biden has not made a decision of his own in over 2 years, probably not even on the flavor of ice cream to get. When he toddles out to that little ice cream cart/stand, there’s probably a note pinned to his shirt (hidden by the sport coat, why do you think he always wears one?) telling the person behind the counter what to scoop up for him.
But as for the Maladministration in general, let me remind you, if they were merely incompetent chances are their policies and actions would help a majority of this country’s citizens about half the time. Since those policies and decisions have been destructive to this country and it’s citizens 100% of the time, we must conclude that is the intended consequences of every one of their actions. QED.
Yes, I thought Biden trying to blame the oil companies for high gasoline prices was disingenuous. Typical for Biden. He’s a bald-faced liar and always has been. This is more of the same.
Not just Biden, all Democrats only use the truth when it benefits them to do so.
It’s not lying if he believes it. And Donks all of them, really are that stupid.
Sleepy is setting the Federal Trade Commission on the oil companies. Well it makes a change from the FBI, I suppose.
This is a fun one. Biden loses in court even tho he thinks he doesn’t have to follow the law.
But if EXXON Mobil is really planning a CCs sink, then I divest any remaining EM shares, cause CCS isn’t practical even IF the CO2 can be sold for tertiary oil recovery. Based on Boundary Dam, the parasitic load is 35% and the uptime is at best 65%. Both are fatal. That is why the multibillion Kemper ‘experiment’ just got physically demolished. Details in essay ‘Clean Coal’ in ebook Blowing Smoke.
$85/ton makes CCS viable.
https://carboncapturecoalition.org/house-budget-reconciliation-package-includes-transformative-carbon-management-provisions/
Wow! Our Dear Leader will give Exxon $85 per ton of ‘captured’ CO2, as a tax liability offset. And Exxon purports to pipe it to their shallow water offshore wells to pressurize the fields. Money For Nothing – Dire Straits
ExxonMobil has no shallow water fields in the Gulf, or much of a deepwater presence any longer either.
The $85/ton 45Q tax credit is solely limited to permanent CO2 sequestration in saline aquifers. This particular area of the Gulf never had much oil production. It was mostly gas production. Most of the fields were depleted long ago and the infrastructure has largely been removed.
I love they way they have packaged this as carbon sequestration when what they are really after is a government subsidy to pressurize the field.
100% wrong… There is no “field” to “pressurize”, and pressurization is not even the purpose of CO2 injection in enhanced oil recovery.
Mark Knopfler made an “energy transition” from being a front man for Dire Straits to leading his own group. Had some lean years. A very talented song writer, guitarist, lyricist, a vocalist with a limited range but tells his story songs well. He reads history and creates songs with historical themes. Not many guys can pull off a song about the two Brits who surveyed the Mason-Dixon Line in colonial times prior to the American Revolution: Charlie Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in a duet with James Taylor no less. The Jordy boy and Baker’s son who as a stargazer became a member of the Royal Society. A lefty no doubt.
CO2 is the fundamental building block of life, and the current concentration is low geo-historically. CO2 doesn’t cause global warming, but if it did that would be a good thing and a boon to life.
The $85/ton is US Treasury funny money, unsecured runaway debt that causes inflation, devalues the dollar, and is a hidden tax on everyone including future generations.
CCS is a boondoggle on many levels. I’m not pleased by EM’s grasping for corporate welfare for a useless and stupid project. There seems to be no end to the thievery of the global elites.
The $85/ton is a tax credit. It’s not a direct expenditure. Tax credits, like tax cuts, tend to generate more economic activity, which generates more taxable income. Whether or not the 45Q tax credit generates enough economic activity to offset its cost, won’t be known for a long time.
However, it is a feature of US tax law, with broad bipartisan support. This is because our government has decided that reducing GHG emissions is a national priority. ExxonMobil, like all corporations, doesn’t get to decide which parts of the tax code it wants to participate in. ExxonMobil actually has a fiduciary obligation to take advantage of all tax deductions and credits available to its business.
At this point, ExxonMobil has floated the idea of a 100 MTPA CCS effort centered on Houston and exposed about $15 million in high bids on oil & gas leases, that don’t appear to have any oil or gas value. It’s my hunch (and many other people’s hunches) that ExxonMobil will use this lease position as leverage to convince the Federal government to convert it to a CCS concession. At that point, ExxonMobil would have to fund and/or convince others to fund the infrastructure required for the CCS effort before anyone makes a dime off the 45Q tax credit.
Greed is alive and well, and the Global Elites have the inside track.
Do you deduct the mortgage on your house?
If so, is that also greed?
The purpose of the home mortgage deduction on the tax returns of individuals is to encourage home ownership, a widely recognized social good.
The purpose of the CCS deduction on the tax returns of Big Oil behemoth corporations is to steal money from the Public Treasury for a completely phony racket.
It always amazes me when ostensible climate realists compromise their beliefs for a quick and dirty buck, not to themselves but to corporate giants, but I guess it’s just human nature to grovel to the super rich.
Minuses? Really? As if Exxon-Mobil getting in on the Solyndra scam isn’t objectionable to you? As if a targeted tax deduction for mega corps isn’t exactly the same as robbing taxpayers? As if net zeroing CO2 isn’t a propaganda bucket of manure?
It’s a sorry thing when people lose the courage of their convictions.
A must see comment on COP-26 by Andrew Klavan …
Watch it before YouTube “mislays” it.
The Fart Heard Round The World – YouTube
The beginning of the end of British rule in America was the “Shot Heard Round The World.” It is ironic that the beginning of the end of the UN IPCC could be Xiden’s “Fart Heard Round The World.” Ridicule works.
True that! Zhou Bi-Den has now truly become an embarrassment. He never did have much of a mind and now that’s fading fast.
Apparently, when an aid told ol’ Joe that it was bad form to fart before the Duchess he was heard to say: “c’mon, man.. she didn’t say it was her turn”..
I am also an old fart, but I do manage to keep from farting in public, especially with microphones around.
In the style of Robert Burns: Ode Tae A Fart
http://moreteavicar.me.uk/ode.html
That was inspired. His only possible salvation is; curse the family dog and hope for the best.
Note: … a badly made haggis has been known to do that (or a hunting dog who got into the venison).
COP26? Nothing has changed from COP1. Same blah, blah. Same shaming. Same bullying. Same same. In all that time the United States has done the most to reduce CO2 and they get the most grief and the least recognition. (even though it doesn’t mean squat for climate).
“even though it doesn’t mean squat for climate”
That’s the worst part: Everything they do will not reduce CO2 output, and there is no evidence CO2 output needs to be reduced in the first place, but these fools keep on trying to reduce CO2 at a ruinous cost to Society.
The Dishonest Data Manipulators are ecstatic. Their scam is working!
So soon after the COP(OUT)26 conference? Oh dear…..
Reality sets in.
“You can’t fix stupid.”
Very true.
However it has come to my attention that you can sedate it.
Lithium + Thorazine + (optional) Fenatyl. That should do it.
Modern problems require modern solutions.
The Clash rocks!
The Clash with a most apropos oil production motif:
Rock The Casbah
That video played right after I Fought the Law… I came “this close” to including it in the post too.. 😉
Griffy and I have two things in common: 1) We’re both Star Trek fans and 2) we’re both fans of The Clash.
*eyeroll* Mr. Middleton, my opinion of you has just taken a severe hit. A fan of The Clash? I got in the habit of changing the station when The Clash came on. But of course, if everyone liked the exact same music, there would have been only one profitable band in the world. Ever. Maybe I can overlook it if we ever meet in person, but it’s going to be tough!
“If new leases expand the global oil supply, that has a proportional effect on emissions from burning oil.”. When the USA greatly increased its natural gas production, not only did the USA’s CO2 emissions go down, but also the USA stopped importing foreign oil. No other country increased its oil consumption or CO2 emissions as a result of this. Similarly, if Gulf of Mexico production goes up, the USA needs less imports It is indeed nonsense.
Due to climate change, “breaking rocks in the hot sun” has become much more dangerous. I hear the UN Human Rights Commission has opened an investigation.
Larry the Cable Guy would say…
Reuters is reporting that the Brandon Administration is pressuring Japan and China to open up the spigots on their own national petroleum reserves to lower world prices, seeing as how Dementia Joe is hitting a new low on public approval each week now.
Politically, President Brandon is unable to open up the domestic US SPR. This is because the optics would be horrible after begging OPEC unsuccessfully to increase production, the COP failure to do anything of substance, and his own stopping KXL and maybe Pipeline 5 in Michigan.
Of course this Reuters reporting is not being covered much in the US media.
“U.S. asks Japan, China, others to consider tapping oil reserves to cut global energy prices: Reuters”By By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw and Timothy Gardner, Reuters
2021/11/18 08:45
article here:
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4348734
Gove DeSantis of Florida travelled to Brandon, FL in order to sign new laws that limit federal vaccine mandates.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/florida-desantis-trolls-president-biden-brandon-vaccine-mandates
The Brandon Administration is doing something with our Strategic Petroleum Reserve: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/something_very_peculiar_is_happening_with_our_strategic_petroleum_reserve.html How much do you suppose is going into Swiss bank accounts? Is it laundered well enough we’ll never be able to tell who got paid? It won’t matter, there will still be “…10% for the Big Guy…”
Thank you Mr. Middleton.
The outright mendacity and stupidity of NPR, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, Pravda (a/k/a the New York Times), Bloomberg, the BBC, the WaPo, the La-La Times and the rest of the dimwits is beyond comprehension or belief.
What scientists say this? I don’t recall reading any published papers that have established this claim. I hear politicians say this all the time, but I don’t consider their speculation as science.
You’ve missed the point entirely. What “scientists say” has never made any difference if for no other reason than it’s a lie. It is also an appeal to authority and a red herring.
What IS important is what scientists are NOT saying, what they are allowing to be said in their name and how they remain silent when obvious absurdities are claimed about a thing that doesn’t even exist … “global climate“. If “scientists” aren’t actually conspiring to defraud the world’s populace, they are certainly complicit in the fraud to milk $trillions from the world economy to pursue their own interests, wealth, notoriety and a fools errand.
What small amounts of warming we have enjoyed over the past ~150 years is entirely beneficial in every way.
There can be no arguments left to deny the benefits of CO2 increase, with no down side.
No good has come from the massive financial waste of the AGW ideology but great harm has come from it. AGW belief is directly responsible for millions of deaths. “Climate change” is a meaningless equivocation intended to gaslight the credulous masses.
“What IS important is what scientists are NOT saying, what they are allowing to be said in their name and how they remain silent when obvious absurdities are claimed about a thing that doesn’t even exist … “global climate“. If “scientists” aren’t actually conspiring to defraud the world’s populace, they are certainly complicit in the fraud to milk $trillions from the world economy to pursue their own interests, wealth, notoriety and a fools errand.”
Exactly! The Silence from scientists who know better, is deafening.
Anyone with any brains knows the unprecedented warming claims of the alarmist are BS (Bad Science).
It’s not any warmer today than in the past, and that’s even with increased amounts of CO2. The CO2 crisis is a lie, a deliberate lie, and there are lots of folks out there who know it, yet say nothing and go along to get along.
Question to the alarmists: Where’s your proof? I’ll answer it for you: You have no proof, just assertions and opinions and deceptions.
Yes sir, this is the biggest science scam in human history, and the most costly.
David, it does look like the leases are in the near shore area of the Corsair trend that has many depleted gas reservoirs from many years ago. CCS is the likely play here for ExxonMobil.
The Brazos leases are along the Corsair fault trend and farther offshore and in deeper water than the Galveston and High Island leases, which are right on the state/Federal boundary.
It’s the only logical explanation. The clusters of leases are in structurally low areas with relatively few legacy wells, which pose the most serious leak path risk for CCS operations.
Of course, ExxonMobil will have to convince the US government to convert oil & gas leases to CCS leases… Which would probably draw legal challenges. And then they would have to sign up emitters, drill injection and monitoring wells, compression facilities and pipelines. ExxonMobil is basically gambling $15 million (pocket change to them) that they can pull this off.
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/11/18/exxon-bids-on-94-shallow-water-plots-in-latest-gulf-of-mexico-leasing-round
I could have summed up this article referencing their very first phrase…
THERE IS NO F***ING “NECESSITY” TO REDUCE CARBON EMISSIONS!!! And that could have been the end of the article right there! Except it is news that a lease auction for drilling rights happened, it’s just another opportunity to gloat over the Brandon Administration failing in everything they attempt. Including the attempt to destroy this country.