EIA expects nine new Gulf of Mexico natural gas and crude oil fields to start in 2022

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO)

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In our June 2022 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast that new fields coming online in 2022 will account for 5% of natural gas production and 14% of crude oil production in the U.S. Federal Offshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM) by the end of 2023. We expect that GOM natural gas production will average 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2023, down 0.1 Bcf/d from 2022. We expect that GOM crude oil production will average 1.8 million barrels per day (MMb/d) in 2023, about the same as in 2022. Currently, no GOM fields are scheduled to start up in 2023.

During 2021, 15% of all U.S. crude oil production was produced in the GOM, and 2% of U.S. natural gas production was produced there. In our STEO, we forecast that eight new fields in the GOM will produce both oil and natural gas by year-end, based partly on data from Rystad Energy. We expect a ninth field, which will produce only crude oil, to start in 2022.

We expect that the additional capacity will not quite sustain crude oil production at levels similar to the end of 2021. The additional capacity from these new fields will not increase natural gas or crude oil production in the GOM. We expect GOM natural gas production to continue its three-year decline; annual GOM production last rose in 2019. Declining production from existing GOM fields is greater than the increase in production from new fields for natural gas and is equal for crude oil.

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

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Since the late 1990s, new development in the GOM has been targeting oil-bearing reservoirs. Today, most of the natural gas produced in the GOM comes from associated-dissolved natural gas production in oil fields instead of natural gas fields. In 2020, gross withdrawals of natural gas in the GOM that came from natural gas wells accounted for less than 30% of total GOM natural gas production, compared with 76% in 1999.

We expect the large development fields of Argos, King’s Quay, and Vito to begin production in 2022. Each has a peak production capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBOE/d) or more, and each is the result of a focused effort to lower the costs of field developments. Offshore producers have made significant progress simplifying and standardizing floating production systems and collaborating with various partners, including overseas construction services companies, to reduce total costs and remain competitive with onshore producers.

However, fields expected to start in 2022 may shift into our 2023 forecast if their start-up dates are pushed back. In addition, fields expected to start in 2024 could begin earlier, resulting in changes to our initial production forecasts.

Principal contributors: James Easton, Kirby Lawrence, Jim O’Sullivan

 JUNE 21, 2022

More than a mine: A tale of two historic British Columbia mining camps

Amanda Stutt | June 24, 2022 | 

Maypole Dancing, 1939. Image from Britannia Mine Museum.

British Columbia’s Britannia Mine Museum has launched a new summer exhibit that takes a nostalgic look back on the recreational activities and social gatherings that built resiliency in its two former remote mining communities; Mount Sheer Townsite and The Britannia Beach, which were isolated from the world and accessible only by boat.


It was the late 1880s when prospectors from Texada Island first surveyed the Squamish area for gold, it was one of them, Dr. Alexander Forbes, who staked claims and is credited as the mine’s founder. In 1898 trappers discovered sulphided copper ore in a mineralized schist. More mining claims ensued, eventually leading to the establishment of Britannia Mining and Smelting Company.

More than 60,000 people from over 50 different countries lived and worked at Britannia from 1904-1974, which was at its peak one of the largest copper mines in the world. Britannia has over 100 miles of underground workings and some 67 miles of diamond drill holes. The mine produced during its life 750 million pounds of copper from 35 million tonnes of ore.

Visible from the sea to sky highway, the iconic Britannia Mines Concentrator, a historic site with a Canadian Federal Heritage designation, was originally built up the rock face of Mount Sheer at the edge of Howe Sound, 28 miles north of Vancouver.

Not all work and no play

To strengthen social ties within the isolated communities, the Britannia Mining and Smelting Company ensured there were plenty of recreational facilities and events for workers and their families, like libraries, a movie theatre, club rooms, billiard rooms, tennis courts, a bowling alley and a swimming pool.

Social calendars saw sporting events, theatrical productions, dances, movies, and parties held throughout the year, culminating in the famed annual Queen of the copper mine pageant, where there were great festivities, some fierce competition, and the winner emerged with a jewel-laden copper crown.

Copper Queen crown at Britannia Mine Museum. Image by Henry Lazenby.






A road, completed in 1952 finally connected the Townsite and Beach communities.

Pioneering flotation innovation technology

According to the museum, Jack Ross, one of Canada’s most prominent mining engineers, noted that Britannia was a leader in the field and developed a new way to extract metals, which was copied in many other mines.

Britannia pioneered the Froth Flotation System – reportedly invented by Carrie Everson, a woman who patented a process for concentration to be used in the mining industry in 1886 but ultimately never got credit, according to a report authored by Dawn Bunyak : The Inventor, the patent & Carrie Everson: Defining success.

After several temporary shutdowns over the years due to fluctuating copper prices, the Spanish flu pandemic, a catastrophic flood, and a strike in 1964 that halted the mine for seven months, it closed for the last time in November 1974.

Today, the museum oversees 23 historic industrial, administrative and domestic buildings, over 7,000 artifacts, 9,500 archive photos and 3,000 archival documents and maps. The new exhibit showcases previously unseen objects, photographs, and films that cast light on the community culture and traditions that strengthened the remote towns.

“Reflecting on the past two years, we felt it was important to look back at how the Britannia residents kept up their active community life in isolation,” said Laura Minta Holland, Curator of Collections and Engagement at the Britannia Mine Museum.

“The Britannia residents created family-friendly environments where the community celebrated and supported each other, which built and strengthened their sense of community.”

This summer’s exhibits and activities include the Copper Quest underground mine train, taking visitors into the mountain for a drilling demo, outdoor gold panning, and within the historic 20-storey concentrator Mill building a multisensory special effects show that recreates the sights, sounds and smells the workers experienced each day.

Learn more here.

Indigenous Ecuadorans fight back as metal mining eats into Amazon

Reuters | June 24, 2022 | 

Ecuadorian Amazon rain forest, looking toward the Andes. 

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The brightly colored chiva bus rocked back and forth, branches scraping across its sides, as it traveled down the narrow dirt road traversing mountain ranges of the Cordillera del Condor, in Ecuador’s southern Amazon.


The region, which stretches about 150 km (93 miles) along the border with Peru, is famous for its rare species and for its large deposits of gold and copper, which Ecuador and its neighbor fought over for half a century until a 1998 border deal.

Today the area is wracked by a different kind of conflict, as the indigenous Shuar people fight to protect their land, forests and rivers from the creeping spread of Ecuador’s mining industry.

Since 2019, the Maikiuants, a community of about 50 Shuar families, have been trying to stave off attempts by Canadian mining company Solaris Resources to set up a copper mine just 7 km away in Warints, another Shuar community.

The firm has already built a base camp and started exploration activities.

“These industries are the very same ones that are destroying the world with their activities,” said Josefina Tunki, who has become a prominent voice against mining extraction as president of the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA).

Her organization represents about 10,000 indigenous Shuar in the region, including the community of Maikiuants.

While many in Warints support the mining project for the jobs it will create, the Maikiuants and other Shuar communities are adamantly against it.

“Here we have waterfalls, rivers, medicine. Here we have meat. For us (mining) isn’t development. For us, the forest is life, it is the market,” Tunki told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Industry experts say there’s a growing need for sustainable mining to feed surging demand for minerals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper that are used to make electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbine systems and batteries as the world tries to move to renewable energy to slow global warming.

“The energy transition is not possible if we don’t (also) talk about how we are going to significantly increase the level of mining activity to produce the metal required for that transition,” said Nathan Monash, head of Ecuador’s Chamber of Mining.

But as global hunger for minerals eats into the Amazon, mining projects are swallowing the land of indigenous communities that climate groups say are the best custodians of the world’s largest rainforest, whose protection is considered essential to slowing climate change.

More than 60% of ancestral Shuar territory, spread over 230,000 hectares (568,000 acres), is covered by mining concessions, said Carlos Mazabanda, country coordinator with the international human rights organization Hivos.

In most cases, the communities were not consulted before their territory was sold for extraction purposes, something that companies and the government are required to do under both Ecuador’s constitution and international law, he said.

Tunki said Solaris did get the approval of the Warints community before starting its project, but neither the company nor the Ecuadorian government consulted the other local communities or the PSHA.

Solaris states on its website that it “always places the highest importance in creating and maintaining open, respectful, proactive and productive relations” with all the communities where it operates.

After initially agreeing to an interview, the company did not respond to several followup emails.

‘Brutal’ deforestation

Ecuador’s government is eager to build up the country’s mining sector and reduce its financial dependency on crude oil exports. It has estimated mining could generate $40 billion in export earnings over the next decade.

In August 2021, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso passed a decree outlining a new mining policy. It promises to crack down on illegal mining and make buying concessions easier for foreign investors, all while emphasizing that mining activities in the country need to be sustainable and responsible.

But his plans have sparked a backlash from environmental activists and indigenous communities who say the industry is already doing irreversible social and environmental damage.

According to Global Forest Watch, the two Amazonian provinces of Morona Santiago and Zamora Chinchipe that encompass the Cordillera del Condor have together lost more than 44,000 hectares (108,000 acres) of forest over the past 20 years.

Jorge Brito, a biologist with Ecuador’s National Institute of Biodiversity, said the vast majority of that tree loss has been due to legal and illegal mining, as well as illegal logging.

“The first thing (mining companies) do is open roads to have better access. That’s when the impacts start,” he said, calling the results “brutal”.

Proponents of Lasso’s plans to grow Ecuador’s mining industry say the potential benefits – jobs and a stronger economy – outweigh the environmental and social costs.

Monash at the Chamber of Mining pointed to the country’s first two large-scale mines in Zamora Chinchipe, saying they have already cut poverty levels and doubled average incomes in some parts of the province – assertions the Thomson Reuters Foundation could not confirm.

But some local people say those mines stand as examples of the devastation the industry can cause.

Since development began in the mid-2000s on the sprawling Mirador copper, gold and silver mine, owned by the Ecuadorian-Chinese company Ecuacorriente, human rights groups have denounced the project for forcibly evicting more than 30 Shuar families from the community of San Marcos.

Carlos Cajamarca, a Shuar farmer who lives in YanuaKim, about a kilometer upriver from the mine, said his four adult children were evicted from San Marcos by the military in 2014.

The mine has also contaminated the area’s water supply, he said.

People who bathe in the local river emerge with rashes and lesions on their skin, he said, and his small crops of yucca, plantain and other fruits don’t produce as much as they did before the mine opened.

“The contamination is everywhere, in plants, people and animals,” he said.

Neither Ecuacorriente nor Ecuador’s Ministry of Energy and Mines responded to several interview requests.

Protests and road blocks

Indigenous communities around Ecuador have been pushing back against the spread of mining, with protests, lawsuits and efforts to develop economic alternatives such as stepped-up tourism.

They have managed to halt several large mining projects over the past five years, and in January the Constitutional Court ruled that mining operations need to seek consent from all indigenous communities affected by their projects, not just a select few.

Last year, the Maikiuants bolstered their guard force, an unarmed self-defense group, to stop mining personnel using the road through their community – the only way to get to the facilities in Warints.

Now helicopters fly over the area several times a day, bringing people and supplies from the city of Macas to the mining camp by air.

Maikiuants resident Victoria Tseremp said the fight is vital to save her community and the nature around it from Ecuador’s land-hungry mining growth.

For her, the promise of jobs and money is not enough to justify the destruction of nature that comes when a mine moves in.

“We have everything we need to eat,” Tseremp said from her kitchen, as she peeled plantains picked from a chakra, or community plot. “I don’t need money to eat here.”

(By Kimberley Brown; Editing by Jumana Farouky and Laurie Goering)

CHILE

Lithium king crowned in dictatorship sees $3.5bn fortune at risk

Bloomberg News | June 24, 2022 |

SQM’s evaporation pools in Chile’s Atacama Desert. (Image courtesy of SQM.)

Few people are better positioned for the electric-vehicle revolution than the billionaire Julio Ponce Lerou.


He retired years ago, but the former son-in-law of late dictator Augusto Pinochet is still known in Chile as the lithium king. And Ponce has never been richer: The shareholder group he leads has seen its approximately 25% stake in SQM, the world’s No. 2 lithium miner, quintuple over the past seven years amid record profit, increasing the value of the portion he owns to $3.5 billion.

Like billionaires across the globe who have seen their wealth soar, from Elon Musk to Chinese property moguls, Ponce, 76, has become a target at home amid the boom times for lithium, a key mineral for making electric vehicle batteries. One of his main adversaries may turn out to be Chile’s 36-year-old president, Gabriel Boric, who supports a constitutional rewrite that may impose environmental curbs on mining and wants to create a national lithium company that could compete with SQM, which sits on the planet’s richest deposit.

Boric’s brand of left-wing politics is much more investor friendly than that of Salvador Allende, whose 1971 nationalization of US-owned mines led to the creation of state copper giant Codelco. But there are signs that the lithium business is about to get increasingly complicated in Chile, with authorities recently rescinding new contracts amid calls for the state to get a bigger share of the mineral windfall.

The shifting landscape for the lithium king has its roots in a wave of street protests in 2019, which led to a rewrite of a constitution born in the Pinochet era that enshrines private property, including minerals and water. Writers of a new charter want to tip the balance back toward community rights, environmental protection and state-run social services, with a greater say for indigenous groups in where and how natural resources including lithium are extracted.

Julio Ponce Lerou. (Screenshot 24 Horas | YouTube.)

Ultimately, the moves could force SQM to adopt extraction techniques that push up costs or limit production, potentially marking an end to booming profits. Ponce — Chile’s second-richest person — is the only disclosed name from the shareholder group, whose entire stake is worth more than $6 billion. Filings show his portion is equivalent to about 16% of SQM. The shares fell 3.2% in Santiago trading Thursday.

The movement is increasing scrutiny of SQM’s business model, which is based on pumping up vast amounts of brine from beneath a salt flat in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert and storing it in giant evaporation ponds for a year or more — a footprint that can be seen from space. The resulting concentrate is turned into lithium carbonate and hydroxide at nearby plants and sent off to Chinese and Korean battery makers.

As simple as it is profitable, the process uses far less fresh water, chemicals and energy than hard-rock mining. But the solar evaporation technique means billions of liters of brine are extracted and then vaporized in one of the most arid places on Earth, which some say is a threat to wildlife such as pink flamingos that inhabit its Mars-like landscape.

Radical proposals such as nationalizing the entire industry have fallen short in the constitutional process. But if the new charter opens the way for the mineral-rich brine under the Atacama to be considered a type of water — an idea the company disputes — that type of mass extraction may come under threat.

There are already calls from some communities and politicians to move to a more selective or direct process of mining that would mean far less evaporation — and probably less output and profit. Both SQM and Albemarle Corp., the only two lithium producers in Chile, are investigating such techniques, which are relatively untested commercially.

Across the developing world, the growth in EVs has created a new demand for minerals from Atacama lithium to nickel in Russia’s Siberia to cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Powering the world with less fossil fuels presents a new set of social and environmental challenges. In the short term, it’s made mineral moguls like Ponce fabulously wealthy.

But the energy transition is leaving behind the communities where the metals are extracted, says 70-year-old Sara Plaza, an indigenous resident of Peine, a village near the Atacama operations.

“Mining dried out the salt flats,” she said from her modest home, with a view to the chalky expanse and mountaintops that surround her town. “Julio Ponce has done whatever he wanted.”

Ponce’s shareholder group didn’t respond to requests for comment made through SQM.

SQM says it is reducing its brine pumping rates even as it ramps up production, through efficiencies and by focusing on lithium and less on minerals used in fertilizers. The company is also spending a lot more time and money trying to win indigenous groups’ favor, and points out that its contribution to state coffers of about 60% of earnings is among the biggest in the industry.

The company has a new marketing campaign that highlights its contributions, and even plans to put up a sign at its Santiago headquarters for the first time to boost local visibility. All this comes as it prepares for talks to renew its mining lease with the government that expires in 2030.

“We want to tell people what we do,” said Carlos Diaz, SQM’s head of lithium. Namely, production of a critical mineral that “helps to decarbonize the world.”

As for Ponce, his journey to lithium king took many twists and turns.

Ponce in 1969 married Veronica Pinochet Hiriart, whom he met because their families had neighboring beach houses. Four years later, Pinochet led the bombardment of Chile’s presidential palace in the coup that brought him to power.

Ponce in 1969 married Veronica Pinochet Hiriart, daughter of dictator Augusto Pinochet. (Screenshot Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile | Wikimedia Commons.)

Ponce was working at a sawmill deep in the jungle of the Darien Gap at the time and heard about the attack from a television in Panama. Under Pinochet’s rule, his fortunes quickly began to change.

During the dictatorship, the former forestry student was named president of a state cellulose company, and helped guide its privatization. He rose to lead other companies controlled by the government and, eventually, the development agency in charge of converting state-run enterprises into private businesses, Corfo. The agency had also commissioned early research on critical minerals in the Atacama, including lithium.

Ponce stepped away from those roles in 1983 to fight allegations of illegal enrichment in the acquisition of ranch lands, of which he was acquitted. When Soquimich, as SQM is also known, sold shares in 1986, he was back in the privatizations, but this time on the buy side. He and his family members bought shares, and when Ponce became chairman in 1987, the board was still stacked with military officials. Years later, Chile’s comptroller found that parts of Soquimich were privatized for as little as a third of market value.

Maria Monckeberg, a Chilean author who is an expert on the fortunes derived from Pinochet-era privatizations, said the reforms urged by economic advisers who studied at the University of Chicago — known as the Chicago boys — opened the way for Ponce’s wealth boom.

“Thanks to the roles he had in Corfo, he detected the importance of Soquimich,” Monckeberg said of Ponce. “And he began designing the plan to own it.”

Chile was only beginning to discover lithium’s potential in the Pinochet era. A copper miner called Anaconda documented deposits when it went on a search for water resources in the Atacama desert in the 1960s, according to Monckeberg’s book. In 1969, a research institute tied to the development agency noted the location of the deposits could make for relatively cheap extraction.

The lightest metal on the periodic table, lithium was discovered in 1817 by Swedish chemist Johan August Arfwedson, and was initially used in tiny amounts to treat depression and bipolar disorder. It later became the focus of military powers interested in the hydrogen bomb, and eventually researchers found a variety of uses: waterproofing, gunpowder, heat-resistant glass, air-conditioning and electric car batteries.

SQM evaporation ponds at the Atacama salt flat. 

(Image from: SQM Corporate Presentation.)

“With bland consistency, white color and surprising properties, lithium opens the doors to applications of great complexity and sophistication,” said a 1986 book edited by Gustavo Lagos, a scientist at Universidad de Chile. Lithium had “an almost magical meaning, containing in it the hopes that neither copper nor even salt reached in the life of the nation.”

Ponce became chairman of SQM in 1987 and continued building up his stake. Six years later, after Chile had returned to democracy, it obtained a lease for exclusive mineral exploitation rights on 81,920 hectares (202,428 acres) in the Atacama salt flats. The company invested hundreds of millions at the site, initially with a focus on potash.

As SQM became one of Chile’s most profitable companies, Ponce fended off a 2006 takeover attempt by PotashCorp. (now Nutrien), North America’s largest potash producer, by signing a pact with Japanese trading firm Kowa. In 2018, while no longer chairman but still a large shareholder, Ponce got a deal to protect the firm’s trade secrets amid an effort by a larger Chinese competitor, Tianqi Lithium Corp., to take a stake. Ponce’s brother Eugenio remains an adviser to SQM.

He also endured scandals. He resigned from his decades-long reign as chairman in 2015 amid a probe over illicit political campaign financing, which led to a $30 million settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and a fine for SQM’s then-CEO (Ponce himself was not charged). Ponce also fought allegations of market manipulation in courts, and successfully reduced a record $70 million fine — an outcome that critics saw as the sign of a system that unfairly favors elites.

Today, Ponce makes time for visits to his polo club in Santiago, horseback rides at his estate of about 5,000 hectares and even equestrian jumping during the pandemic. His children sometimes join him on rides — all four were banned from SQM management in 2018, but not from SQM holding companies, where his daughters are directors. A Panama-based trust holds SQM shares for benefit of the family. Ponce keeps family close, including his brother Gustavo, a yoga guru who has defended Julio on Chilean TV.

“It’s not easy to be in his position,” Gustavo said of his brother in text reply to Bloomberg.

But a constitutional rewrite represents a challenge that could be harder for Ponce to resolve than his previous court battles.

Cristina Dorador, one of the members of Chile’s constitutional convention, says the current charter fails to recognize the Atacama salt flats as ecosystems that are affected when large volumes of brine are pumped for lithium extraction. A scientist, she has published studies on the dwindling flamingo presence at lagoons in the vicinity of lithium mining.

SQM says those studies fail to consider the impact of tourism on the migratory birds, adding that while lithium production is up, brine pumping rates are down and food conditions haven’t changed. Monitoring systems show flamingo populations have remained stable over time, SQM said, adding that it welcomes scientific efforts to better understand the relationships between mining and the environment.

Dorador said the promise of addressing climate change by supplying the materials needed for a shift to renewable energies has enriched miners like SQM, but few EV consumers are aware of the new types of environmental problems that the transition is creating.

“If we are going to do any exploitation then it needs to be done using the latest in technology and ensure that the consequences are minimal,” she said. “There has to be a national decision.”

Joe Lowry, founder of advisory Global Lithium LLC, said SQM needs to address environmental concerns, but at these heights — with a lithium shortage propping up prices near record highs — it’s not a “major hurdle,” at least financially. Even a constitutional rewrite is unlikely to upend forces that are working in Ponce’s favor, he said.

“The new government certainly will not want to stop the massive royalty income,” he said.

(By Blake Schmidt and James Attwood)

 

St. John Ship Building Acquired to Build Offshore Jones Act Ships

Libra Group sees opportunity in shipbuilding for Jones Act offshore vessels (St. Johns Ship Building)

PUBLISHED JUN 21, 2022 6:36 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Demand from the emerging offshore wind sector and the need to build and maintain Jones Act compliant ships is driving new opportunities and investment interest in U.S. shipyards. Libra Group, a privately-owned business group owned by the Logothetis family, announced the acquisition of Florida-based St. Johns Ship Building and the formation of a maritime subsidiary American Marine to support and strengthen the U.S. shipbuilding industry to meet the perceived need for Jones Act-compliant vessels.

Based in Palatka, Florida near Jacksonville, St. Johns Ship Building provides new construction and repair for a wide variety of steel and aluminum vessels, including ferries, tugs, deck and tank barges, landing crafts, and general cargo vessels. Significantly, according to Libra Group, it is also one of the few U.S. shipyards that builds vessels that support and service offshore wind farms. In April, the yard received an order to build some of the first vessels specifically to support the operation of U.S. wind farms. WINDEA CTV, which is a newly launched operation from a partnership between MidOcean Wind, Hornblower Group, and Ems Maritime Offshore, ordered two Incat Crowther-designed CTVs to be built at St. Johns.

“There is huge demand for Jones Act vessels to be built and there are not enough yards to do it,” Libra’s chairman and chief executive George Logothetis, told Reuters.

With facilities including a 100-acre inland campus with an 850-ton floating drydock, St. Johns Ship Building, Logothetis says, is positioned to accelerate the production of Jones Act-compliant vessels, particularly the construction and maintenance of offshore wind supply and support vessels. Last year, the yard received a $1.3 million grant from MARAD as part of the Small Shipyard Grant Program to support the construction of a new drydock. 

"Americraft Marine is proud to acquire St. Johns Ship Building, which has the right leadership and skilled workforce to accelerate the future of U.S. shipbuilding and advance the urgent need for Jones Act-compliant, future-focused U.S. vessels," said Omear Khalid, CEO of Americraft Marine. "Our goal is simple: to build a best-in-class Jones Act-compliant shipyard.” Americraft Marine reports that it intends to further bolster capacity at St. Johns Ship Building through workforce training, leveraging the yard's proven expertise with the goal of creating a best-in-class future-focused shipyard.

The production of vessels in the U.S. has declined in recent years explains Americraft Marine. The significant need for Jones Act-compliant vessels they said will require significant shipbuilding capacity over the next 10-15 years to support the upcoming demand for vessels that construct and service renewable energy infrastructure.

The acquisition is the first for Americraft Marine, which anticipates future organic and acquisition-based growth that addresses the dire need for modern, state-of-the-art vessels, including those that are eco-friendly as more Jones Act-compliant vessels age out of work. The company expects future expansions to prioritize investments that are sustainable and position the U.S. for leadership in the clean energy future by building and maintaining vessels that support renewable energy projects.

 

Gigantic Offshore Methane Release Spotted by Satellite

The Zaap-C complex on a normal day, flaring actively. The facility has since been expanded with an additional generating platform (Carl Tanzler / CC BY NC SA 2.0)

PUBLISHED JUN 20, 2022 7:08 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

A team led by researchers at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia have used satellite surveillance methods to find and quantify an ultra-large release of methane from the Zaap-C offshore oil and gas platform in the Bay of Campeche. It is believed to be the first time that remote sensing has been used for detecting methane emissions from offshore operations, and it represents a significant contribution to the monitoring of this potent greenhouse gas. 

Based on the researchers' analysis, the platform complex emitted about 40,000 tonnes of methane over the span of 17 days (the warming-potential equivalent of about 3.4 million tonnes of CO2). This cloud of natural gas would be invisible to the eye, but methane is readily detectable by infrared. The team used infrared imaging sensors aboard the WorldVision-3 satellite, which were precise enough to identify the source down to the specific platform (Zaap-C) and the specific location aboard the platform (the flare towers for the production and separation units). 

By cross-checking with data from a NOAA/NASA satellite that can detect active fires, the team determined that the methane emissions from the platform lined up with the days when the facility was not flaring off gas. 

Zaap-C has flared gas more or less continuously since it began production in the 1990s, and the shutdown of its flaring towers marked a unique one-time event. During a 17-day period in December, the team detected extremely large methane (natural gas) plumes emanating from the platform. This "ultra-emitting" event was nearly equal to the entire regional emissions of Mexico's offshore sector for a year. It may well be the first time that it has occurred aboard Zaap-C, but the massive size of the release makes just one instance significant.

"These [random] events are likely to be unaccounted for in current [emissions] inventories, and if they occur frequently enough, they represent a significant contribution to total emissions for the offshore sectors," the team wrote.

It is the first time that this method of methane-emission detection has been shown to be effective for spotting sources at sea. The methane detection technique relies on picking up reflected infrared radiation from the earth's surface, and since infrared is heavily absorbed by water, the signal level from targets at sea is relatively low. To boost the power, the researchers took images only when the sun was directly behind the target, effectively looking straight at the "sun-glint" off the water - the orientation with the maximum available amount of reflected light.

Top image: Zaap-C, 2009 (Carl Tanzler / CC BY NC SA 2.0)

Germany’s North Sea Ports Paralyzed by One Day Strike

Workers stayed off the job at all of Germany's ports (Niek Stam/Twitter)

PUBLISHED JUN 23, 2022 7:06 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Ports across Germany were paralyzed on Thursday as the trade union Ver.di staged what it calls a “warning strike,” after they said they were at an impasse with the Central Association of Germany Seaports over their collective bargaining agreement. For the second time in less than a month, the union has sought to pressure employers to meet their demands for wage increases. The result is a growing backlog of ships across the North Sea.

The union represents approximately 12,000 workers at the seaports of Emden, Bremerhaven, Bremen, Brake, Wilhelmshaven, and Hamburg. Reports indicate that work at all of the ports came to a halt this morning with the first shift and the workers were vowing not to return until Friday morning’s first shift. The union reported that 4,000 workers attended the rally in Hamburg, with the police confirming large numbers they estimated at possibly 3,500 people. The police dispersed some of the demonstrators that were using firecrackers and noise makers, but most of the demonstrations were reported peaceful.

“The offer made by the employers in the fourth round of negotiations is totally inadequate; it has not brought any substantial improvement to the previous offer but turned out to be a classic deceptive package," said ver.di negotiator Maya Schwiegershausen-Güth. "It is unacceptable that employers want to leave employees largely alone with the effects of the rapidly increasing prices," continued Schwiegershausen-Güth. “The employees have worked to the limit in recent years and kept the supply chains together. They deserve real recognition and their fair share."

The union is demanding a 14 percent increase or 1.20 euros per hour across the 58 collective bargaining companies including at the primary ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven. They are also demanding an annual bonus of up to 1,200 euros due in part to the rampant inflation which is driving up the cost of living. The union also is demanding that the contract only cover 12 months, while the employers are offering increases of up to 11 percent over 18 months.

 

 

The union said it would like to have avoided another strike but that it had no choice but to take to the streets for the first time since the 1970s to demand better conditions for its members. The union previously staged a four-hour warning strike at the beginning of June. They are promising to continue to increase the pressure on employers while calling for further negotiations. “You can not have the last word,” said Schwiegershausen-Güth

Besides Hamburg and Bremerhaven, the union expected workers to stay off all three shifts today in all the smaller ports along the North Sea. Reports indicated that almost the entire workforce honored the strike in Bremen as well as ports ranging from Wilhelmshaven to Brecht and Emden.

The shipping industry is warning of the costs and severe impact on the supply chain even from these brief strikes. Currently, they are saying there are already 30 ships waiting in the North Sea for berths. This includes 15 large containerships.

“The situation in the North Sea is not yet leading to a dramatic collapse in Germany’s maritime trade,” said Vincent Stamer, Head of the Kiel Institute while noting, “but it is certainly a burden, especially for shipping with Asia.”

The Kiel Institute reported that two percent of the world’s trade was now stuck in the North Sea. They said that already 12 percent of Germany’s shipped goods are stuck and it is expected to rise in the coming days.
 

 CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

The U.S. Navy's "Fat Leonard" Scandal is About to Become a TV Series

Leonard "Fat Leonard" Glenn Francis cooperated with two journalists on a podcast series, which will now be adapted for TV (file image)

PUBLISHED JUN 21, 2022 10:51 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The U.S. Navy is getting a lot of media visibility this year: Top Gun: Maverick is outperforming at theaters everywhere, and recruiting-age men and women are standing in line to watch a glamorous preview of life at sea. That positive exposure will be more than welcome, but the next Navy-focused screen production may be less so. A group of journalists have teamed up with a film producer to make the notorious "Fat Leonard" corruption scandal into a TV series. 

The two-man investigative reporting team - authors and journalists Tom Wright and Bradley Hope - can draw on their direct access to the man at the center of the Navy's most salacious scandal in decades, Leonard "Fat Leonard" Glenn Francis. In the late 2000s, Francis bribed a substantial share of 7th Fleet's logistics and operations team in order to win business for his ship-husbanding company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA). 

Multiple Navy officers who participated in the scheme have admitted to accepting bribes and inducements like hotel stays, lavish dinners, luxury goods and the services of prostitutes arranged by Francis. In exchange, they would provide Francis with sensitive information on ship movements and help divert Navy ships to ports where his company operated. To date, the GDMA investigation has led to criminal charges against nearly three dozen U.S. Navy officials and defense contractors. So far, 29 have pleaded guilty, including five officers with the rank of captain and one rear admiral. 

In all, prosecutors say that GDMA overbilled the Navy by $36 million with the help of corrupt servicemembers and civilian employees. For perspective, the lost funds would have been enough money to operate an F-35C fighter for nearly four years.

Much of this is in the public record thanks to ongoing criminal cases, but Wright and Hope convinced Francis to go into much more depth for a podcast series. The program detailed previously un-aired allegations, and it will now serve as the basis for a theatrical adaptation of the "Fat Leonard" story for TV release. American film production company SK Global is backing the venture, and the screenwriter will be Peter Chiarelli, best known for his work on the script for Crazy Rich Asians. 

 

Another Serious Lifeboat Accident Illustrates Continued Risk in Drills

Davit, boat, and sling arrangements for the davit lowering system (Apollonia / TSB)

PUBLISHED JUN 22, 2022 9:26 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) has released a report on yet another serious lifeboat-drill accident, illustrating the continuing hazards of this routine SOLAS safety exercise. A failure of a lifeboat launch system on a merchant vessel can result in a fall from height, ending in injuries or fatalities for anyone in the boat.

On December 1, 2020, the crew of the bulk carrier Blue Bosporus were carrying out a free-fall lifeboat drill at anchor in English Bay, British Columbia. After the four wire rope slings for lowering away the free-fall lifeboat were attached, the third mate and an AB went aboard the boat to conduct a test launch. The third mate activated the release hook, and the lifeboat slid forward about 25 centimeters. At that point, three slings connecting the boat to the davit failed, along with the bracket connecting to the fourth sling. The boat fell 45 feet into the water. 

Both crewmembers aboard were seriously injured - one with leg injuries and one with an injured hand - and they were taken to a hospital for treatment. The boat's hull sustained damage where it struck the water. Most (but not all) of the broken sling components were retrieved for analysis. 

A post-accident investigation found that the crimp sleeves on the slings had weakened over time due to stress corrosion cracking - a common problem for stainless steel. In addition, one of the slings was shorter than the others, meaning that it took the full load of the boat when the hook was initially released. This sling failed first, followed by the others in sequence. 

The crew were under orders to exit the lifeboat after releasing the hook, before the boat was lowered into the water using the davig - a practice consistent with IMO guidance. However, they still needed to be present in the boat in order to release the hook. They were in the practice of standing without securing themselves to the seats while carrying out this task. "There had been no assessment of the risk associated with standing unsecured in the lifeboat when it was suspended by its slings," TSB concluded.

The vessel's maintenance schedule did not specifically cover inspecting the condition of the slings, according to TSB. After the casualty, the shipowner installed new load-tested sling assemblies and brackets, and it sent a safety circular to update its requirements for lifeboat inspections and drills. 

 

Sailboat to Collect and Process Ocean Plastics Gets Design Approval

The SeaCleaners plans a sailboat to collect and process floating ocean plastic into energy (The SeaCleaners)

PUBLISHED JUN 24, 2022 6:48 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

An NGO dedicated to fighting for pollution-free oceans has won design approval for its unique concept vessel to clean up the oceans. The SeaCleaners hopes to launch its sailboat, the Manta, at the end of 2025 as part of its mission of raising awareness and promoting prevention, while also sharing scientific knowledge, and developing innovative solutions for waste collection and repurposing.

The NGO’s integrated engineering design office, Manta Innovation, has been working with naval architects Ship-ST and LMG Marin to develop the unique design for their vessel. In addition, Bureau Veritas recently reviewed the overall structure, stability, and security plans of the Manta, based on risk mitigation around new technologies and requirements. Bureau Veritas awarded Approval in Principle (AiP) to the Manta.

More than 45,000 hours of study and development have gone into developing the concept for the unique vessel over the past four years. The NGO reports that more than 60 engineers, technicians, and researchers, along with five research laboratories and 20 companies have contributed to the development of the design concept.

 

 

The Manta will be a 183-foot-long sailboat with a beam of 85 feet and masts rising 200 feet. The vessel, according to The SeaCleaners, will be the first concentrated ecology and technology factory ship capable of collecting and processing floating ocean waste before it gets fragmented, starts to drift, and penetrates the marine ecosystem. They plan to equip the vessel with an onboard factory including a waste-to-energy conversion unit. 

“Marine plastic pollution is a global ecological disaster which requires urgent action now both on land and at sea. We are grateful that the Manta was awarded the AiP from Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore. This represents a major milestone for us and shows the solidity of our approach to tackle plastic pollution,” said Yvan Bourgnon, President & Founder, of The SeaCleaners.

Supporting the mission of collecting and processing the plastics from the water, they plan for the Manta to serve as a state-of-the-art scientific laboratory for the observation, analysis, and understanding of ocean plastic pollution and as an educational platform open to the public. The plan also calls for the Manta to be powered by a combination of renewable energy technologies to minimize its carbon footprint and achieve 50 to 75 percent energy autonomy.

In the next development phase of the Manta, The SeaCleaners plan to launch the call for tenders to shipyards. Planning to set sail in just over three years, the Manta would be deployed in areas of high marine litter concentration along the coastal waters of the most affected countries and near the estuaries of major rivers collecting and repurposing floating plastic waste.