Thiis is Peak Oil

The Greens reveal some home truths about National's obession with oil.

Conventional oil production has peaked everywhere in the world (including New Zealand).

Addicted to oil and to the myth of Infinite Growth governments around the world are upping their search for expensive and dirty forms of energy that can but hasten our demise.

So desperate is the quest that governments everywhere are subverting (or worse, dispensing with) whatever went by the name of democracy

Data shows NZ's oil output, exports down under National

The Green Party say New Zealand's oil production and exports under the National-led government have slumped.

National's oil obsession runs out of gas

Wednesday, 5 February 2014, 9:26 am

Press Release: Green Party

National's oil obsession runs out of gas

The rapid decline in oil production and exports under the current government confirms that National's oil drilling obsession has been an economic and environmental failure, Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman said today.

Oil production in New Zealand has fallen by 40% and oil export revenue by 47% under the current government, which is paying $45 million a year in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

"National's oil drilling obsession has been an economic and environmental failure," said Dr Norman.

"For six years, National has lavished taxpayer subsidies on the oil industry and changed laws at the whim of drilling companies. But New Zealand has gained nothing in return.

"The riches promised by John Key and Steven Joyce have failed to materialise. Oil production has fallen by 40% and oil export revenue has been cut in half.

"The latest failure of US drillers Anadarko to find oil just confirms that gambling on oil finds is not a successful economic policy. Even if oil was found, it would just add to the global pool of fossil fuel reserves that can't be burned if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.

"National has bet the public's money on the wrong horse. We should be investing, instead, in jobs-rich sectors with proven success records like hi-tech manufacturing and IT.

"National's economic strategy rests on asset sales and oil drilling. Both have been total failures. Smart, green economic policies are the path to a prosperous New Zealand," said Dr Norman

See - New Zealand's crude output, exports dip to six-year lows: ministry (18 July, 2013)

A Message to Anadarko from New Zealand

Greenpeace

In February 2013 we sailed through the Cook Strait on the Rainbow Warrior very close to where Texan oil company Anadarko wants to carry out high risk deep sea oil drilling in the Pegasus Basin.

We had just been to the Auckland Islands to draw attention to the best of what is at stake if we allow deep sea oil drilling to proceed. But as we sailed towards Wellington we were met by an enormous pod of dolphins and they reminded us that all around NZ we have an astonishingly rich ecology that is too precious to risk.

So right there, on the bridge of the Rainbow Warrior, we made a pledge to resist, with every peaceful means available to us, the threat of deep sea oil. And we called Anadarko in Texas to tell them exactly that.

This is a video of our message to Anadarko. You can take action by sending your own message to Anadarko here: http://act.gp/Yz65ki

Together we can Stop Deep Sea Oil.


The government/media spin 

Anadarko's Taranaki oil exploration fails

Stuff,

4 Febraury, 2014

Not striking oil is one of the risks of oil drilling, Prime Minister John Key said today in response to news that Texan oil giant Anadarko found no commercially viable oil or gas in its deep-sea well in the Taranaki Basin.

"It's well established that a huge number of wells that these companies will drill for will prove not to actually have either commercial oil or hydrocarbons, or none whatsoever," Key said.

"So it's disappointing from Anadarko's point of view and from our point of view, because of course that would be great for New Zealand if there was some big oil findings there."

"My understanding is they're moving on to other parts of New Zealand, hopefully they'll be more successful there."

The Far North region was a place that could potentially benefit from oil exploration.

"That's a place where historically, you've got low levels of employment, high levels of unemployment, low wages and people screaming out for opportunities," Key said.

"It's also a place where there's highly likely to be prospective conditions for mineral, oil and gas exploration.

"And those two things could really help address the situation in Northland."

He doubted the failure of Anadarko's Taranaki drilling would have a negative impact on future prospecting licences.

Anadarko's drill ship Noble Bob Douglas will move to the Canterbury Basin this week.

"It's a disappointment, but this is by far the most frequent outcome in exploratory drilling," Anadarko New Zealand's corporate affairs manager Alan Seay said.

The 4619-metre well, which was drilled under 1500m of water, will be plugged and abandoned over the next few days, he said.

Anadarko spent about 70 days drilling in deep water off the Taranaki coast, at a cost of up to US$250 million (NZ$309m). The company's licence to drill in the Deepwater Taranaki Basin ends on February 14.

"In terms of the drilling operation, the ship performed above and beyond expectations," Seay said.

Energy campaigner for Greenpeace Steve Abel said it was a "real bad day" for Anadarko and the New Zealand Government.

"The Texan oil giant has not only announced that their New Zealand drilling has failed, they've also announced a loss of over $950 million dollars in the last quarter," he said.

"[Prime Minister John] Key's ministers have wasted a whole load of political capital on this bungle.

"Instead, they should be backing our own cutting-edge clean energy industry, which will bring thousands of jobs and a multi-billion dollar economic boost.

"That's what smart politicians would be doing."

In November, Greenpeace unsuccessfully challenged the Environmental Protection Agency in the High Court to have the granting of Anadarko's offshore drilling permit declared erroneous.

Key said planned protests over drilling to coincide with his arrival at Waitangi tomorrow were misguided.

"The protests are actually more often than not, fed by misinformation. In fact, actually we've been drilling in New Zealand for well over 30 years and we're the Government that brought in much tougher regulation when it came to deep-sea drilling.

"In fact, despite what David Cunliffe says the previous Labour Government allowed drilling without the new tougher regulation that we've brought in, in deeper waters."

Anodarko shares tumble

This is a ruling that should be of immense importance to New Zealanders as the government defends the company partially responsible for Deepwater Horizon, and which it has ruled that it can be held responsible only to the tune of $100,000 in the case of an oil spill.

This seems (despite its importance) to have gone unreported in the New Zealand media

Anadarko tumbles on multi-billion dollar ruling

Shares of Anadarko Petroleum plummeted Friday after a judge ruled that the oil company owes litigants billions due to a fraudulent reorganization designed to avoid environmental liability..

Google

14 December, 2013

US bankruptcy judge Allan Gropper ruled that the oil and gas company owes between $5.1 billion and $14.5 billion. The company immediately vowed to appeal the ruling.

Investors sold its shares off after the ruling; they closed at $78.30, down 6.4 percent.

The case stems from a series of corporate restructurings at Kerr McGee Corp. in the early 2000s prior to it being acquired by Anadarko in 2006 for $18 billion.

Kerr McGee, once a leading chemicals firm, is accused of leaving waste sites around the United States, contaminated with uranium contamination, thorium and other toxins that pollute land and water.

Gropper concluded that the restructuring constituted a "fraudulent conveyance" that offloaded more than $1 billion in environmental liabilities to another entity, Tronox Worldwide.

Gropper said Tronox, created in 2005, lacked the financial means to run as a viable business or to assume the liabilities. Tronox fell into bankruptcy reorganization in 2009 and emerged in 2011.

"There can be no dispute that Kerr-McGee acted to free substantially all its assets -- certainly its most valuable assets -- from 85 years of environmental and tort liabilities," Gropper said.

As a result, creditors of Kerr McGee would be "hindered or delayed" in trying to recoup money from Tronox to cover cleanup costs or other liabilities, Gropper wrote.

The reorganization, Gropper said, also made the "cleansed" Kerr McGee "more attractive as a target of an acquisition."

The decision followed a 34-day trial that plumbed the circumstances surrounding Kerr McGee's creation of Tronox.

Anadarko said Gropper's ruling is not a final judgment and that the court will consider Anadarko's right to reduce the penalty available under bankruptcy court.

The decision would be a big hit for Anadarko, which reported $2.5 billion in earnings in 2012 on revenues of $13.4 billion.

Anadarko was a partner of BP's in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico. It paid BP $4 billion in 2011 to resolve claims related to the accident.

John Hueston, the litigation trustee for the Tronox Trust, hailed the decision and said it would enable "the remediation of the environmental hazards Kerr McGee wrongfully attempted to abandon."

The trust's beneficiaries include the US government, more than a dozen states and the Navajo Nation.

"The US will not let polluters evade their environmental liabilities through a corporate shell game," said Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who represented the US government.

Citi slashed Anadarko's investment rating to "neutral," saying an appeal could stretch out for up to 10 years and "create a substantial overhang on Anadarko's stock price."

New Zealand Deep-sea drilling

Anodarko's spill modelling

From Greenpeace,

via Facebook, 13 December, 2013

Getting Anadarko's spill modelling was like getting blood from a stone but today it's finally been released under the Official Information Act - and it's sobering stuff.

This map is taken from Anadarko's own spill modelling. It shows the regions of coast most at risk if a blowout occurs on their current drill-site off the coast of Raglan. Regions in red have a much higher probability of having oil wash ashore than regions in blue.

Anadarko’s modelling assumes a spill rate of 12,000 barrels of oil every day for one well location and 18,000 barrels at another. Greenpeace’s own spill modelling report, released in October, which was called “scare-mongering” by prime minister John Key, assumed a more conservative 10,000 barrels per day.

Anadarko’s oil spill data estimates a spill would reach New Zealand shores in 66.05% of cases in autumn and 51.82% in summer.

The information has only become publicly available this afternoon following requests made under the Official Information Act and in Parliament. Oil companies are required to compile these documents and submit them to government. However, the information was omitted from wider documents made available in September.

The documents are also at the middle of a current High Court case. Earlier this week, lawyers for Greenpeace argued that the government’s Environmental Protection Authority made an ‘error in law’ by allowing Anadarko to go-ahead with its drilling programme without looking at these very documents, which include reports on oil spill modelling and emergency plans to deal with an oil spill.

Simon Bridges has repeatedly claimed that exploratory deepwater drilling “is a highly regulated area where we put businesses like Anadarko through the wringer” .

The industry’s own data shows that oil could end up on our beaches. And there’s more than a hint that the government and the oil lobbyists colluded to keep this secret. They simply do not want the New Zealand public to know about the potential for an oil spill.

The whole government process around deepsea oil drilling has swung between utter farce and total shambles.

The full document release is here: http://www.maritimenz.govt.nz/anadarko

Anodarko to commence drilling in NZ waters

There have been mass protests on beaches down the west coast of the North Island, as well as on the east coast and in the south island throughout the weekend. Anodarco is set to start drilling later today.

Anadarko protest: Small boat stays in exclusion zone

The scene is set for a skirmish off the North Island's west coast this morning as protest vessels hold fast to Anadarko oil drilling ship the Noble Bob Douglas

NZ Herald

25 November, 2012

Anadarko had intended to begin drilling 185km off the coast of Raglan on Thursday or Friday but has been shadowed by a flotilla of six protest vessels.

One, the Vega, remains within the 500m exclusion zone.

Among those on board the 11.5m ketch are Greenpeace NZ chief executive Bunny McDiarmid and former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Anadarko has said that the presence of the protest vessels would not prevent the drilling from going ahead but Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel did not believe this.

"At the time they arrived [on Tuesday] they said they intended to commence drilling operations imminently but they haven't.

"Our understanding is that the presence of the Vega is stopping them from drilling and we don't believe they're going to drill while the Vega is there."

Mr Abel said neither police nor Maritime New Zealand had contacted Greenpeace about the Vega being within the exclusion zone.

Anadarko New Zealand corporate affairs manager Alan Seay said last week that the Bob Douglas was on track to begin drilling, despite the presence of the protest vessels.

Today Mr Seay told TVNZ's Breakfast the drilling was set to be under way by midday.

Protesters had stayed inside the safety zone and had yet to have an impact on the company's drilling operations but drilling would go ahead regardless.

"There's always a risk of something going wrong if somebody goes into a safety zone - it's like having an unauthorised person walking into a construction site," he said.

"We understand there are views right across the spectrum, there are people who are deeply opposed and there are times for those views, but there are also people who are very supportive of the potential economic uplift," he said.

More than 3000 people turned up at beaches from Muriwai to Wanganui at the weekend to oppose deep-sea oil drilling in New Zealand waters

Government can handle oil protesters - Key

Prime Minister John Key says there are measures the Government has up its sleeve to handle protesters who might try to delay the start of drilling by oil giant Anadarko off the coast of Raglan.

Stuff,

25 November, 2013

But he has refused to go into what those measures might be.

Protest vessels have so far prevented Anadarko drilling ship the Noble Bob Douglas from breaking ground below the West Coast of the North Island.

Work still hasn't begun at the site, 110 nautical miles west of Raglan, where Anadarko spokesman Alan Seay last week expected drilling to commence on either Thursday or Friday.

One GreenPeace vessel - the Vega - has remained inside the 500 metre exclusion zone, but Anadarko has said it would begin drilling today.

Anadarko's licence began on November 15 and ends on February 14 and it is an offence for any vessel to get within 500 metres of the drillship.

On RadioLive this morning, Key refused to say whether or not the military would by called in to push the protest boat back outside the exclusion zone.

Key denied there was a large number of people in New Zealand worried about the safety of deep-sea drilling.

"There are people who are genuinely confused by the data and what they're told," he said.

This was after more than 3000 people showed up at coastlines across the North Island yesterday, to show their opposition to deep-sea drilling in New Zealand.

"You can't say there's no risk," Key said.

"But I think that risk is extremely remote.

"Technology has changed a lot, we have higher standards in New Zealand. I've seen what it would actually take for there to be a major problem, and there's an awful lot of things that would have to go wrong at the same time."

Support for the Vega, and the flotilla, has grown in recent weeks, with around 700 people turning out for a Banners on the beach protest at Raglan on Saturday, one of many run on the West coast of the North Island.

Kawhia tribe Ngati Hikairo attended the Raglan protest and another was held at Aotea Harbour.

More than 1000 people attended the deep sea oil protest at Auckland's Piha Beach, 400 at Muriwai Beach and 500 at Bethells Beach as the land-based demonstrators threw their support behind the protest flotilla.

Raglan Maori are also among those opposed to Anadarko's presence.

Tainui hapu environmental spokeswoman Angeline Greensill said they were considering legal action after the arrival of the gargantuan drillship on Tuesday.

The hapu has threatened to issue a trespass notice on the oil drilling company, which it says is drilling in Tainui's customary fishing waters.

"They are actually within our customary fishing area of the whole west coast, so we're just contemplating going out ourselves. They need to be served notice that they are trespassing on our rohe moana (ocean boundary)."

Greensill, a former Mana Party candidate, said discussions were under way between west coast Maori on how best to to protect their traditional food source.

She complained Raglan Maori were not consulted before the Government issued Anadarko a licence to prospect for oil in 1500 metres of water.

Radio New Zealand interview with Bunny McDiarmid of Greenpeace and Alan Seay of Anodarko