FauxNEWS

In my youth early technical career, I was sent out to a rig in the gulf to monitor one of the first drilling mud flow computers in the world. My company designed and built it for Flour Inc. As an Engineering Tech. I actually did a lot of the assembly and testing of the main electronics gear, so I was a logical pick to go. It was the best one month vacation I had ever had. The computer performed flawlessly, so I had a lot of time to fish. It was a Exxon rig and the Engineer I was working with told me to bring my fishing gear. We both caught an enormous amount of just about any Gulf fish you can imagine. The Cook was glad to clean and prepare all of it. It was all fresh and absolutely delicious. That was in the ’60s.

The mud flow computer measured drilling mud going into the well being drilled and measured the flow coming out. If they were close to equal after straining out the chips, all was well. If there was a serious loss in volume it indicated some porosity in the bore. They had mud additives to plug that loss. If the volume coming out suddenly increased, the BOP ( Blow Out Preventer) was activated automatically and they had time to do measurements and adjust mud density to balance the pressure rise.

That was just one advance that made drilling offshore safer and environmentally safer.

The following link is a series of posts put together by a person who knows the subject of OCS drilling intimately.

Here is a teaser

Offshore GOM 101

If you really want to learn a lot about Offshore, read all 14 posts. Start at the bottom of the list and work to the top. Each has a

next>

at the bottom…don’t miss the rest!

I am still in the process of going through them. There is a lot there.

This article did not even make the chronicle, but this is a perfect example of why we import so much of our oil.

Plains Exploration & Production Co. has signed an agreement with three California environmental groups to eventually halt oil production in a California field.

The Environmental Defense Center, Get Oil Out! and Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara groups initially opposed Plains’ proposal to expand into the Tranquillon Ridge Oil and Gas Field off Lompoc, Calif., saying it would result in oil spills, air and water pollution and hazardous gas releases.

“The cornerstone of this agreement is the requirement that oil and gas development in both the Tranquillon Ridge and Pt. Pedernales Fields will cease on Dec. 31, 2022,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel of the EDC, who represented GOO! and CPA in the negotiations. “Never before has an oil company agreed to a date certain end of production, making this a one-of-a-kind agreement.”

Plains Exploration (NYSE: PXP) has also agreed to pay $1.5 million to a local fund to be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to give about 3,900 acres to The Trust for Public Land for public protection.

Granted it is a 14 year window for the company to continue to produce on existing wells but this sets a very dangerous standard.  These liberal enviro-nuts now have won a fight with an oil company, and have proven that they can shut down oil production in California, but also can get the company to turn over lands to be “protected”.  And people wonder why we have 100+ dollar oil and import over 50% of our oil.  It is because of the NIMBY mind set of the people on both coasts.

I say let them produce their own fuel, and see how they like moving around in horse and buggys.