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Каспинфо июль 2002 |
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Название: Нефть и газ в мире на англ. языке Главные Пункты: * Правительство Литвы опасается, что в случае нефтяного разлива на месторождении Кравцовское в Балтийском море, которое разрабатывает ЛУКойл, загрязнение может достичь территориальных вод Литвы и Куршской косы. МПР Литвы совместно с Россией сформировало экспертную группу для оценки влияния разработки месторождения. * Согласно исследования, проведенного Главным Финансовым Управлением Конгресса США, работы по восстановлению земель Аляски после бурения скважин и добычи нефти обойдутся в 2,7-6 млрд. долларов. Администрация Аляски потребовала от нефтяных компаний всего 500 тысяч долларов. (19.07.2002) Полный Текст Нефть и газ в мире на англ. языке Нефть и газ в мире на англ. языке *** UNESCO TO WARN RUSSIA'S LUKOIL ABOUT THREAT OF BALTIC SEA OIL DRILL TO CURONIAN SPIT (Baltic News Service June 21) UNESCO's World Heritage Committee plans to pass a resolution warning about the threat of the plans of Russia's LUKoil company to start drilling oil in the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Curonian Spit, an item in the UNESCO's world heritage list. The document should be adopted at the committee's sitting in the Hungarian capital Budapest next week, the Lithuanian Environment Ministry reported. Lithuania will also have an opportunity to state its opinion on the ecological effect on the Curonian Lagoon during the 26th session of the UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, kicking off on Monday. Lithuania will attend the event as an observer. In the press release, the Environment Ministry expressed concern over the intentions of the Russian oil giant to extract oil in the D6 deposit, also known as Kraftsovskoye. "There are no guarantees so far that LUKoil's oil extraction plans in the Baltic Sea near the Curonian Spit will pose no threat to the unique nature. The D6 belonging to the Russian Federation is close to the Lithuanian border, therefore, an unsafe oil drilling project, in the Environment Ministry's opinion, would violate the interests of our country," reads the statement. The ministry said that in order for the LUKoil project to meet all environmental requirements it is necessary to agree that Russia should present official information about the evaluation of environmental effects of the planned drilling of oil at D6. It noted that the information in LUKoil's website is of promotional character and does not provide an exhaustive evaluation of the effect to the environment. Furthermore, some of the data are over ten years old. "The document lacks a clear accident elimination plan, and statements about conducting a market analysis and mathematical models are not substantiated on any proof. There is no word about international and bilateral obligations, which should be followed with particular consistency, because the D6 deposit is merely several kilometers away from the Lithuanian state border," the ministry noted. The Environment Ministry fears that in case of oil spillage at the drilling site oil could reach Lithuania's territorial waters and the coast of the Curonian Spit. In the ministry's opinion, LUKoil should ensure application of most advanced environment protection technologies at the oil extraction site. According to the press release, the Environment Ministry is currently forming a group of experts to evaluate in cooperation with Russia-appointed specialists the environmental effect of the extraction of the D6 deposit. LUKoil announced its intentions to start extracting crude from the D-6 oil deposit, near the Lithuanian-Kaliningrad maritime border, starting 2003. The D-6 (Kraftsovskoye) oil field is on the bed of the Baltic Sea, in a depth of 2.3 kilometers, 22 kilometers off the Curonian Spit, a long, narrow stretch of dunes spanning from Lithuania to Kaliningrad region and registered on the UNESCO World Heritage/Biosphere Reserve list of sites. Russia has joined the Helsinki convention on environment protection in the Baltic Sea, which stipulates that any plans to start work in the sea should be reported to all neighboring countries with an exhaustive analysis of the ecological situation. Having familiarized themselves with the report on the impact of the planned oil drilling in the Baltic Sea on the environment, Lithuanian Greens Movement called it "propaganda" and a work of "science fiction". They urged Lithuanian leaders to launch negotiations with Russia on an independent assessment of the project without delay. Lithuania has not yet received any official information from Russia about concrete preparation works for oil drilling in the Baltic Sea. Russia has only informed the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry about the ongoing ecologic analysis of the project, vowing to present more exhaustive information about the results in the future. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas have expressed concern over LUKoil's oil extraction plans. MDBNews CIS Week 27 *** Costly Cleanup Expected After Alaska Drilling By Cat Lazaroff WASHINGTON, DC, July 10, 2002 (ENS) - Oil companies drilling in Alaska's North Slope are required to post bonds amounting to just a tiny fraction of the money needed to clean up and restore the land after drilling is complete, finds a new report from the General Accounting Office. The study concludes that the bill for removing drilling structures and restoring tundra could run as high as $6 billion. Oil exploration and production on the North Slope has created a network of thousands of oil wells, hundreds of miles of pipelines, roads and airstrips, and a variety of other structures, including living quarters for hundreds of workers. Most of this infrastructure is on Alaska state lands, meaning Alaska has jurisdiction in how much cleanup and restoration work the oil companies must do after their wells are played out. The Alaska Pipeline, a fraction of the massive infrastructure which may become obsolete when oil companies run out of oil on Alaska's North Slope. (Photo courtesy Bureau of Land Management) The state requires oil drilling companies to post bonds of just $500,000 to cover all their oil and gas leasing on state land - regardless of how many wells they may build. "These amounts represent a small fraction of the funds that may be needed for dismantlement, removal and restoration of state lands on the North Slope should a company refuse to or be unable to pay," concludes the report by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress. Some of the wells on Alaska state land are running low, and many oil companies are seeking to tap new reserves on adjacent federal lands, such as the 23 million acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA). "Eventually, even with additional oil production from federal lands, production on the North Slope will decline to the point that operating the Trans-Alaska Pipeline will no longer be profitable," the GAO report notes. "After that, the oil industry's considerable infrastructure, estimated to be as much as $53 billion, will no longer be needed." What will happen then is unclear. Alaska has adopted general dismantlement, removal, and restoration requirements that contain "no specific stipulations on what infrastructure must be removed or to what condition the lands used for oil industry activities must be restored once production ceases," the GAO found. Animal tracks in the snow on Alaska's North Slope. (Photo courtesy Alyeska Pipeline Service Company) "Alaska's requirements specify that the oil companies have to return the land to a condition that is satisfactory to the state - a condition that it has yet to define," the report states. Until that definition is made, there is no way to accurately estimate the cost of removing infrastructure and restoring disturbed tundra. Some oil companies have attempted to estimate what these costs will be, based on assumptions about what infrastructure will need to be removed and what restoration will be done. Their estimates, which the companies stress are hypothetical, suggest that billions of dollars will be needed to restore Alaska's North Slope to a natural state. The GAO estimates that the work will cost $2.7 billion to $6 billion. For decades, Alaska has been collecting bonds whenever oil leases or drilling permits are issued, money that is intended to insure future cleanup. "Such financial assurances total only about $200,000 for each oil company's statewide drilling operations and $500,000 to cover all of a company's oil and gas leases in the state," the GAO reports. Much of Alaska's North Slope is made up of wetlands regulated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) Some federal agencies, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, have the authority to require additional financial assurances from oil companies, or to impose more specific restoration requirements. "Almost the entire North Slope is designated wetland," and the Corps is responsible for regulating wetland uses, the GAO noted. However, the GAO found that in general, neither the Corps, nor local municipalities nor native tribes have tried to impose additional cleanup requirements on energy companies, yielding to the state's authority. Even on federal lands on the North Slope, there are few assurances that defunct oil drilling sites will be cleaned up and restored. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, has set a restoration goal of returning the reserve to its previous uses, including fish and wildlife habitat. "However, the Bureau has yet to develop specific dismantlement, removal and restoration requirements for companies to use to meet that goal," the GAO found. Exploration rig in the Alaskan arctic. (Photo courtesy Arctic Power) In contrast, the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service has specific requirements for restoration after offshore drilling in federal waters, including the removal of all obstructions in the water. In the past, a lack of specific requirements for cleanup and restoration led to the abandonment and inadequate cleanup of about 80 wells drilled on federal lands in what is now known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. "Today, some of these wells are leaking oil and other substances that could result in an environmental hazard," the GAO warned. "A recent Bureau of Land Management internal working document estimated that the total cost to plug and abandon these wells would exceed $100 million," a price that taxpayers would likely have to pay. Representative Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who requested the GAO study, said the report "makes clear that oil companies are refusing to disclose the soaring cost of their existing liability on the North Slope." Markey likened the issue to the questionable accounting practices that have brought down energy giant Enron, telecom company WorldCom, and a host of other major corporations over the past year. Representative Edward Markey requested the report from the GAO. (Photo courtesy Office of Representative Markey) "Hiding $6 billion in cleanup liabilities is a world-class accounting scandal in the same league as WorldCom and Enron," Markey wrote. The report is also "an indictment of the existing federal and state permitting process, which allows private oil and gas development on public lands using permits that are so vague and financial assurances so inadequate that the public interest in restoring these lands may never be redeemed," Markey added. Markey is calling on the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to demand a "true accounting" of the size and scope of the dismantlement, removal and restoration cleanup liability of each of the oil companies active on the North Slope of Alaska. He has also sent a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, asking that agency to reform the bonding system to ensure that the oil and gas industry shoulders the risk of running out of funds to restore public lands after energy development. Markey's request follows recommendations in the GAO report that the Interior Secretary instruct the BLM to issue specific dismantlement, removal and restoration requirements and to review the adequacy of its financial assurance program "in order to ensure that the lands of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska are properly restored after oil and gas activities cease." Only five percent of Alaska's North Slope - the portion within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - is currently closed to oil drilling. (Photo courtesy Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) The GAO also recommends that any future decision to open up new federal lands to oil and gas activities should consider including specific restoration goals and specific financial assurances sufficient to meet those goals. "It is clear from this report that the Interior Department has delegated its public responsibilities to a few giant oil companies when it comes to restoring public lands," Markey said. "Both the Department and the industry have a very lax definition of what will be required and how much they will have to pay. The failure to impose those requirements in the leases we are issuing today could guarantee permanent damage on these ecologically sensitive public lands for centuries to come." Environment News Service (ENS) |