Daily Archives: June 19, 2017

VIRGINIA BEACH

The City Council is set take a major step on Tuesday to oppose offshore oil and gas exploration after years of swaying on the issue.

This new position would come seven years after the council had voted to support drilling off Virginia Beachs shores. In 2015, the council took a neutral stance.

Now members will change course againunder pressure from the tourism industry, hotel association and civic and environmental groups.

Eight of the City Council's 11 members said they will vote Tuesdayto oppose offshore oil and gas drilling as well as seismic testing. The new position would be a recommendation to President Donald Trump, who will make the final decision on offshore drilling.

In April, Trumpordered that the Obama-era ban on offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans be reviewed.

Mayor Will Sessoms saidhe plans to stand against offshore drilling to protect the beaches and tourism industry.

"I don't think I have ever changed my mind on issues very easily, but I did on this," he said.

Councilman Bobby Dyer said he doesn't want drilling to become a reason for the Navy to consider leaving Hampton Roads, though he acknowledged that the service has not asked the council to take a position on the issue or threatened to leave.

"We need to make sure we don't jeopardize our relation with the Navy or adversely affect their operations," Dyer said.

Councilman John Uhrin had supported offshore drilling to create jobs. He said he changed his mind after listening to the community and seeing how a major oil spill like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico could hurt the economy.

It turns out we are really one of the only coastal cities in the mid-Atlantic that doesnt have an opinion on this topic, Uhrin said. I felt it was time.

Zach Jarjoura, the Sierra Club's Hampton Roads conservation program manager, said his group plans to ask other city councils in the next few months to consider adopting anti-drilling resolutions. He said the push likely will start in Norfolk.

"The oil moves. If there's a spill, who knows where it will go? Jarjoura said. It has the potential to impact every city in Hampton Roads."

Pilot writer Dave Mayfield contributed to this report.

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Virginia Beach City Council will take a stand against offshore oil and ... - Virginian-Pilot

AVALON U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, called a move by the Trump administration to conduct seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean barbaric and insane during a press conference Monday.

Seismic air guns are used to find gas and oil pockets deep beneath the ocean floor. President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at expanding offshore drilling near the East Coast, and, earlier this month, five companies applied to conduct seismic testing including in an area just south of Cape May.

Environmentalists, local politicians and tourism officials gathered Monday afternoon near the 30th Street beach in Avalon to signal their opposition to seismic testing and offshore drilling.

We in Cape May County have a $6.3 billion tourism business, Cape May County Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton said. Now I want you to imagine an oil spill out there today, with this wind blowing on the beach.

We cant afford that, ladies and gentlemen, he added.

During seismic testing, air is blasted into the ocean floor every 10 seconds for an extended period of time. LoBiondo said he attended an air-gun demonstration last year.

The decibel level for this seismic air gun is up to 250 decibels. LoBiondo said. That would blow a human ear out.

Industry groups say seismic surveys have been conducted in the United States and around the world for decades, with little adverse impacts. The National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, the agency seeking the seismic testing permits, has said that air-gun operations would include measures to monitor and mitigate any harm to marine mammals.

Environmental groups say the testing would hurt fish and other marine life, and LoBiondo also suggested it would harm South Jerseys fishing industry.

Theyre really defenseless against that noise, said Cindy Zipf, executive director of the North Jersey-based group Clean Ocean Action. It would be like a war zone for marine life.

The oil and gas industry has pushed for the seismic testing plan, which would map potential drilling sites from Delaware to central Florida. No surveys have been conducted in the region for at least 30 years.

Those at Mondays event also railed against what they said they believe is the end game of the testing oil and gas drilling off the East Coast. Spills and accidents are unpredictable and would threaten the Jersey Shores economy, several officials warned.

We have enough natural disasters we have to worry about being in emergency management that we dont need to worry about man-made disasters, said Avalon Mayor Martin Pagliughi, who also heads Cape May Countys Office of Emergency Management.

If we foul whats out there, we cant flip a switch and fix it, LoBiondo said, gesturing toward the water.

LoBiondo has recently introduced a pair of bills to combat the administrations plan one that would ban permits for seismic activity in the Atlantic Ocean and another that would place a 10-year moratorium on offshore drilling in the body of water.

He said Monday that its still early in the process for both pieces of legislation. The seismic testing bill has gained 23 cosponsors, Lobiondo added.

The NMFS is accepting public comments on the proposed surveys through July 7.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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LoBiondo, local officials blast Trump's offshore drilling proposal - Press of Atlantic City

The EU commissions proposals include member states regularly sharing information. Photograph: Franois Lenoir/Reuters

Banks, accountants and law firms that facilitate offshore tax schemes face a Europe-wide crackdown, according to a leak of draft legislation.

Brussels will publish proposals this Wednesday to force financial intermediaries to automatically disclose any new cross-border tax schemes offered to clients. Those designing and promoting aggressive avoidance structures will have five working days to file details with their local tax authority, according to a leaked version of the proposals, drawn up by the European commission.

The clock will begin ticking as soon as the scheme has become available to a client. Where there are several intermediaries in the chain, one will be made to take responsibility for disclosure. And where all intermediaries in the chain are based outside European member states, the obligation to disclose will fall to the client.

The ultimate objective, according to the commission, is to design a mechanism that will dissuade intermediaries from designing and marketing such arrangements.

The new rules will come into force in 2019 and are aimed at cross-border schemes that involve more than one country, so long as one of the jurisdictions involved is within Europe.

Since 2004, UK statute books have had legislation forcing those who market tax schemes to report them to Revenue & Customs. Portugal and Ireland have similar rules. However, the commissions proposals would further tighten the screw on British-based intermediaries.

This is because all European member states will be obliged to share with each other, every three months, details of the tax schemes disclosed. A central directory of avoidance schemes will be created, to which all member states will have access.

It is possible the regulations will never be adopted by the UK. However, if Britain negotiates to remain part of the single market, it would be subject to the same tax and financial regulation as full members of the union.

Research shows that globally, the majority of intermediaries are based in Hong Kong, the UK and the United States. A study of the ICIJ Offshore Leaks database, which contains data from the Panama Papers and previous leaks, identified 140 intermediaries linked to offshore entities. Nearly 90% of them have an office, a subsidiary or an affiliate in Europe.

The most active facilitators were the Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse, which were linked to 24,500 offshore entities between them, according to the report, which was commissioned by the Green and European Free Alliance groups in the European parliament.

Trident Corporate Services, which has offices in Londons Portland Place and was linked to 8,500 offshore entities, is the third largest and the first in a string of middlemen whose names are largely unknown outside the world of offshore companies.

If we go for a softer Brexit, as now seems more likely, these rules would apply in the UK, said a Green MEP for south-west England and Gibraltar, Molly Scott Cato. We call on member states to adopt the proposal as soon as possible and to scale up resources in their tax administrations.

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European commission to crack down on offshore tax avoidance - The Guardian

MOSCOW, June 18 (Reuters) - Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft said on Sunday it had found its first oilfield in the Laptev Sea in the eastern Arctic, making a breakthrough in the search for hydrocarbons in the harsh and far-flung region despite Western sanctions.

Rosneft and its partners plan to invest 480 billion roubles ($8.4 billion) in developing Russia's offshore energy industry in the next five years, part of a drive to boost output from new areas.

The company has sought tie-ups with several global oil players to develop Russia's offshore regions. But a deal to work in the Kara Sea in the western Arctic with U.S. company Exxon Mobil was suspended in 2014 after the imposition of Western sanctions against Moscow.

"The result of the drilling at the Khatanga license block allows Rosneft to be considered the discoverer of (oil) fields in offshore Eastern Arctic," the company said in a statement.

Most Russian oil output comes from western Siberia, where fields are depleting, pushing producers to look for new regions. Sanctions complicate the process, barring Western companies from helping with Arctic offshore, deepwater and shale oil projects.

The Arctic offshore area is expected to account for between 20 and 30 percent of Russian production, one of the world's largest, by 2050.

Rosneft owns 28 blocks in the Arctic offshore area with combined estimated resources of 34 billion tonnes of oil equivalent.

There is only one offshore platform in the Russian Arctic, Prirazlomnoye, operated by Gazprom Neft, which plans to produce 2.6 million tonnes (52,000 barrels per day) this year.

Analysts say oil production in the region - apart from Prirazlomnoye - is years away and may start only in the mid-2020s

Rosneft has been working in the Laptev Sea since 2014. It values the hydrocarbon resources of the sea at around 9.5 billion tonnes of oil equivalent. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Mark Potter)

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Russia's Rosneft Finds Offshore Oilfield in Eastern Arctic - Fortune

Seismic searches for offshore oil and gas are back in play

By Coastal Review Online on June 19, 2017

A ship tows an airgun array. (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)

Seismic testing in search of oil and gas resources off the North Carolina coast is once again on the table.

Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed to issue five permits that would allow the oil and gas industry to conduct seismic surveys for oil and natural gas off the East Coast from the New Jersey/Delaware border to central Florida.

The action follows President Trumps executive order of April 28 reversing the Obama administrations mandate to permanently protect large portions of the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean from offshore drilling.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order May 10 that rescinded the denial in January of permit applications from six seismic testing companies aiming to conduct surveys in the Mid- and South-Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. The companies had applied to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for the permists to conduct geological and geophysical, or G&G, activities off the East Coast.

That decision underestimated the benefits of obtaining updated G&G information and ignored the conclusions of BOEMs Atlantic G&G Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision, which showed that no significant impacts are expected to occur as a result of these seismic surveys, an Interior Department statement said.

Former BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper, however, in denying the applications expressed concerns about the potential harmful effects of seismic testing on marine mammals.

Seismic testing uses air guns towed behind ships to send sonic waves that penetrate the ocean floor. How those waves are reflected from the bottom gives hints to the location and extent of oil or natural gas deposits below the surface.

Seismic operations are controversial because the use of soundmay disturb the normal behavioral patterns of marine mammals.

As far as the impact goes, the chances of an animal being outright killed by seismic air gun arrays are slim, said Doug Nowacek, a professor at the Duke Marine Lab and one of the worlds leading experts on marine mammals. The effects that we worry about mostly is producing sound in their environment and thats the sensory mode they use.

Seismic air gun blasts create background noise, making it harder for marine mammals to hear each other, their young and predators. It might also cause physiological distress, altering the animals migration patterns, feeding and even reproduction.

The Atlantic Ocean hosts about 30 kinds of mammals. They include humpback and North Atlantic right whales and dolphins. Sea turtles could also be affected by airguns.

Seismic testing companies mainatai that mitigation measures are in place to reduce the effects on marine mammals.

The Trump administration has directed BOEM to develop a new five-year program for offshore oil and gas exploration, though it is unclear how long the permitting review process may take.

Under the executive order from the president, he did ask that we streamline the process or find ways to streamline, said Connie Gillette, BOEMs chief of public affairs. I think its not unreasonable to say that it could be a year or two years. Theres multiple things that have to happen. It just takes a while.

Before applications get the all-clear they must be approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.NOAAs National Marine Fisheries Service reviews proposed seismic activities for incidental takes the inadvertent harming, killing, disturbance of wildlife expected during such testing.

Permits and authorizations for the take of a protected species are required under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, the future of which is uncertain under the current administration.

Incidental harassment authorizations, or IHAs, will be released, and the public will have 30 days to comment.

IHAs typically contain a variety of mitigation measures.

Some of those hopefully should be time-area closures, including Cape Hatteras, Nowacek said.

He describes this area where, in a typical day, you can expect to see four to five different species of whales, various sea turtle species and hammerhead sharks, as the marine equivalent of the Serengeti.

Environmental groups, including Oceana, which has been a leader in campaigning against seismic testing, have begun again to rally in opposition to prospective seismic testing in the Atlantic.

A representative with the American Petroleum Institute did not respond to a request for comment.

International Association of Geophysical Contractors President Nikki Martin lauded the Trump administrations decision to reopen permit application reviews.

Offshore seismic surveys have a long history of providing an accurate assessment of our nations oil and natural gas resources in an environmentally safe manner, critical to informing an effective national energy strategy and future OCS leasing decisions and plans, Martin stated.

The IAGC represents more than 125 G&G companies.

The industry defends offshore energy exploration methods, saying theres no scientific evidence that links the sound from air gun blasts to the deaths of whales and other marine life.

Industry officials argue that existing G&G survey data, collected more than 30 years ago, is outdated.

In her directive to deny seismic testing permit applications, Hopper wrote that there are currently moves to develop quieting technology for seismic surveys. BOEM in 2014 hosted a workshop that including government, industry, environmental groups and researchers to gain a better understanding of these emerging technologies.

The most promising alternative to airguns appears to be marine vibroseis technology, Hopper wrote.

Vibroseis reduces the loud shot of air gun surveying by spreading the energy used to create the sound over a longer duration.

The economic feasibility of this technology remains to be proven and the potential environmental impacts tested, Hopper wrote. There is no silver bullet. However, by engaging industry and the regulators, I expect technologies will be developed that can produce data that is commensurate to that being produced by currently available airgun seismic survey techniques, but with much less environmental impact.

Such technology should absolutely be part of the equation, Nowacek said. I think it would be irresponsible for BOEM and NMFS to not evaluate the new technology like vibroseis. What people need to understand is that its not just a one-time thing. They go out there and, if they find some areas that look promising, theyre going to want to shoot seismic every three to five years.

The G&G companies that have applied to conduct seismic testing in the Atlantic would be overlapping the same test areas, particularly off the coast of Cape Hatteras, he said.

Why dont we just have one survey and then everyone buys the data as they need it? Nowacek asked. That is what we mean by wise use of resources while mitigating the impacts to the environment.

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Seismic searches for offshore oil and gas are back in play - The Outer Banks Voice

Integrated energy giant ExxonMobil Corporation (XOM - Free Report) has made its final investment decision (FID) regarding the first phase development of the Liza field located off the coast of Guyana, among the largest oil finds of the past decade.

It is to be noted that at the beginning of this month, ExxonMobil decided to double its royalty payment out of its offshore oil production to the government of Guyana.

We would like to remind investors that the integrated players current oil and gas output is way below the production levels 10 years ago in spite of its several acquisitions. The company produced 4.2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOPD) in the first quarter of 2017, 4% below the year-ago period. Hence, capital spending on the Liza project is expected to increase the companys output significantly in the coming years.

Phase 1 of Liza Project

The FID involves completion of a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel capable of producing up to 120,000 BOPD. Production at Liza is likely to start by 2020. The company projects the cost of this phase to be slightly above $4.4 billion including a lease capitalization cost of around $1.2 billion for the FPSO facility. The facility is expected to generate approximately 450 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) from the Liza field, located at a water depth of15001900 meters.

The development of Liza phase 1 can also produce significant benefits for the country in the form of job creation, specialized workforce training, increasing government revenues and others.

The 6.6 million acres Liza field is a part of the Stabroek Block. ExxonMobil holds 45% operating interest here while Hess Corporation (HES - Free Report) and CNOOC Limited's (CEO - Free Report) wholly-owned subsidiary Nexen own 30% and 25% interest, respectively.

Recent Inclusion

ExxonMobil also declared positive outcomes related to the Liza-4 well, stating that it has more than 197 feet of high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs, enough to carry out a potential Liza Phase 2 development. The recent turn of events left the company with increased estimated gross recoverable resources for the Stabroek block at 2-2.5 billion BOE. Apart from Liza, the recoverable resources are from successful exploration wells on Liza Deep, Payara, and Snoek.

About the Company

Irving, TX-based ExxonMobil is one of the worlds largest publicly traded oil companies, engaged in oil and natural gas exploration and production, petroleum products refining and marketing, chemicals manufacture, and other energy-related businesses. Approximately 83% of Exxons earnings come from its operations outside the U.S. The company divides its operations mainly into three segments: Upstream, Downstream and Chemicals.

Price Performance

In the last one month, ExxonMobils shares have increased 1.4%, while the Zacks categorized Oil and Gas International - Integrated industry lost 1.9%.

Zacks Rank and Stock to Consider

ExxonMobil presently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in the oil and energy sector is Delek US Holdings, Inc. (DK - Free Report) . It sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Delek US Holdings sales for 2017 are expected to increase 71.31% year over year. The company delivered a four-quarter average positive earnings surprise of 60.68%.

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ExxonMobil Moves Ahead with Liza Project Offshore Guyana - Zacks.com

It is difficult to find a more hated industry on Wall Street than offshore drilling right now.One of the ugliest stocks in the space, Seadrill (NYSE: SDRL), closed trading on Friday at $0.44 a share. Exactly three years ago, it was at $39.43 a share, or almost 90-times higher. Put another way, in just three years, SDRL has lost 99 percent of its market value.

What happened? The oil market crash.

Drilling hundreds and thousands of metersbeneath the ocean floor is an expensive and risky endeavor. When oil was trading in triple digits, the potential payoff made the risk taking worthwhile. But when oil prices cratered and oil and gas companies had to tighten their belts, the costly deepwater projects were usually the first to get axed.

To make matters worse, during the good times, the offshore drillers had become too aggressive and overbuilt, increasing the supply of rigs and ships, throwing the market even more off balance.

The charts below, courtesy of IHS Markit, tell the story. With lower demand and an oversupply, dayrates and utilization rates headed south. Drillershad more trouble finding and keeping customers, and they made less money per customer. The net result is fading revenues and earnings plus shrinking backlogs, which point to continued revenue decline.

Seadrill was the most aggressive offshore rig owner in the industry in expanding its fleet, including committing to 7th-generation ultra-deepwater ships, fancy but expensive units that cost more than half a billion dollars each to build. It spent more money on capital expenditures than it generated from operations, and had to close the gap with debtplenty of it. This aggressive strategy works if the industry stays strong, but the fall in oil prices sapped demand. And so, today, even after some maneuvering, it has more than $14 billion in debt and liabilities and sits on the cusp of potential bankruptcy.

Seadrills CEO will be out at the end of June and the company is now involved in debt restructuring negotiations with creditors. Filing for bankruptcy protection is a likely option if negotiations fail. Either way, it looks inevitable that creditors will convert their debt into equity in the company. Common shareholders will be left with heavy dilution, and ownership of but a tiny sliverof the company.

Diamond Offshore (NYSE: DO), on the other hand, remained more financially conservative and abstained from the go-for-broke strategy that left Seadrill in its current position.

Revenues and earnings have eroded, as you may expect, but Diamond Offshore has remained profitable through out the current extreme industry downturn even as its fleets utilization rate has fallen below 50 percent.

Of course, as you can see from the chart above, its share price has been devastated as well, but unlike Seadrill, the company is not facing any existential crisis. Its a matter of weathering through the downturn. It has one of the larger backlogs and younger fleets in the industry, so its well positioned for the eventual rebound.

Despite the ugliness, the offshore drilling industry isnt dead. Offshore exploration, particularly deepwater, remains the last frontier for potential major oil discoveries. The lack of new significant discoveries, plus the reduction in capital investment due to the oil price decline, has dropped the oil industrys reserve-replacement ratio has fallen to 32 percent. This means that oil companies are adding proved reserves at a rate less than one third of the production rate. Depletion of reserves are accelerating and sooner or later, oil companies will have to look offshore again, especially as the cost profile of some deepwater projects now can compete on a financial return basis with that of shale operations.

Indeed, Diamond Offshore and other offshore operators have reported that they are beginning to see more international oil companies (their customers) consider restarting offshore projects and they are seeing more tender activity. However, it will likely take multiple quarters for revenues to significantly rebound. And even if demand picks up, the oversupply is still a major problem to work through, so a quick bottom and recovery is unlikely.

Still, for the long-sighted investor, it would be prudent to keep Diamond Offshore, and other deepwater operators, on the radar. Even Seadrill could enjoy a share price jolt if it reaches a restructuring deal, depending on the terms. However, between the two, DOis clearly the less riskyto make right now, even if SDRLs upside couldeventually turn out to be higher in the long run.

Just a few months ago, Exxon Mobile bought approximately 275,000 acres of westTexas property for an astounding $6.6 billion.

That same week, Noble Energy said it would pay $2.7 billion for another energy company, just to get access to 120,000 acres of its oil-rich land.

Some experts are predicting this shale drilling hotbed could eventually surpass the colossal Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia as the worlds biggest oilfield.

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A Tale of Two Offshore Drillers - Investing Daily