Page 38: of Marine News Magazine (May 2015)

37 39

OFFSHORE & ENERGY

Five Years on from MacondoFive Years on from Macondo

An interview with NOIA’s Randall Luthi provides unique perspective on where the offshore energy business has been, where it is now, and where it could be headed next.

By Joseph Keefe t is a predictable but at the same time, an important an- Exploration & Development niversary to examine: ? ve years beyond the Deepwater Today, 85 percent of the OCS remains shuttered to ex-

IHorizon oil spill, which began on 20 April 2010 on the ploration and development, including the entire Atlantic

BP-owned, Transocean-operated Macondo Prospect in the Coast, Paci? c Coast, and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. De-

Gulf of Mexico. Widely considered to be the largest acci- spite efforts to change that reality, Luthi says that nothing dental marine oil spill in the history of the energy industry, has changed, explaining, “We are currently in the 2012- oil ? owed from the sea ? oor for 87 days until capped in 2017 program. That has no additional areas open. What mid-July. The environmental impact is well documented, Interior did was release the draft proposed program for the the ultimate impact of the incident on the offshore and oil 2017 to 2022 ? ve-year program. In that, there is at least industries today has been profound, lasting and without a possibility of studying the southeast Atlantic for 2021. doubt, it made the offshore business safer. That’s great news. It’s at least made it through the Interior’s

Randall Luthi, President of the National Ocean Indus- review process. We want to make sure that Interior does tries Association (NOIA), a Washington-based advocacy not drop this as a potential lease sale.” group dedicated, among other things, to the safe develop- NOIA’s other concerns include the 50-mile barrier ment of offshore energy, sat down with MarineNews in (shore to offshore) that Luthi says has no real scienti? c rea-

April to look back, and then ahead at what might come son to it. What it does do is make the initial leases far more next. His perspective, re? ective of the more than 300 expensive to develop. And then more expensive to get the

NOIA member companies providing environmental safe- oil, should you ? nd any, from offshore to shore.

guards, equipment supply, gas transmission, navigation, The southeast Atlantic region, says Luthi, hasn’t been research and technology, shipping and shipbuilding to looked at for about 30 years. “We really don’t know what’s the offshore industry, gives an idea as to where we are and there. We have old seismic data which indicates there could what’s been done to get us there. be something, and there might be great resources inside that 50 mile buffer, but we’ll never know because we don’t

May 2015

MN 38