Monthly Archives: June 2020

Ocean Onyx, an offshore drilling rig owned by Houstons Diamond Offshore Drilling, left Singapore on March 14 and headed for the southern coast of Australia as the coronavirus virus was shutting down economies and wiping out demand for oil.

With the world awash in unneeded oil, Australian oil producer Beach Energy used a loophole to extricate itself from its $65 million contract with Diamond, which was already struggling and had spent more than $100 million preparing and transporting the rig. Within days, Diamond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and laid off 102 workers.

To be sure, Diamond was struggling before the contract was canceled. The company lost more than $800 million in the first quarter of 2020.

Given the severe downturn in hydrocarbon prices, many companies are hanging on by their fingernails, said Mike OLeary, a partner at law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth in Houston. When it comes to bankruptcies, were seeing the tip of the iceberg at this point.

The offshore oil sector, still rebounding from the 2014-16 oil bust, is again fighting for survival this time from the coronavirus pandemics economic fallout. Many rig operators are laying off workers as offshore energy companies cut short drilling contracts and look for ways to restructure amid mounting financial pressure.

Offshore is getting hit really, really hard, said Matthew Fitzsimmons, vice president of cost analysis for Norwegian research firm Rystad Energy. Its looking like investments will take a while to rebound.

Uncharted waters: Impact of Deepwater Horizon on BP, offshore industry still playing out

The crisis hits an industry that was enjoying something of a renaissance in the months before the collapse. Offshore spending was expected to increase by 5 percent in 2020, Rystad said last year. Ultra-deepwater drilling and massive new projects by Chevron and BP were expected to boost record production in the Gulf of Mexico. And around the world, Exxon and Hess were having success off the coast of Guyana, while Halliburton had won contracts to drill off the coast of Senegal.

Many offshore projects, however, need oil prices above $40 and even $50 a barrel to be profitable. Now with crude stalled just under $40, as it was last week, analysts say only the strongest, best-financed and most-efficient offshore companies will survive, again reshaping the industry into one that is smaller, leaner and that employs far fewer workers.

Thats bad news for Houston and the Gulf Coast, which hosts the vast majority of the 60,000 offshore workers nationally, according to the National Ocean Industries Association, a trade group representing 100 offshore companies. Houston is home to some of the largest offshore operations such as Schlumberger, Halliburton and Transocean.

The cycle were in now is much more drastic than what anyone could have contemplated for the industry, said Erik Milito, president of the association. Youre not going to see a sustainable offshore industry if youre at the $30 range.

The crash has claimed several offshore companies, including Diamond Offshore and Hornbeck Offshore Services, which filed for bankruptcy protection in April and May, respectively.

Diamond, a Houston-based drilling contractor with significant operations in the Gulf of Mexico, said in court filings that demand for its contract drilling services plummeted as oil producers cut costs and idled offshore rigs. Hornbeck, a Louisiana-based oil-field services company that transports oil to shore from offshore rigs, said in its filings that the crash hindered its ability to make payments on $1 billion of long-term debt.

Other offshore players are expected to follow Diamond and Hornbeck into bankruptcy. Houston-based Fieldwood Energy, one of the largest independent exploration and production companies specializing in offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, is reportedly preparing for its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in two years.

Offshore oil production, which generally requires massive upfront capital and a decadeslong return on investment, has been slow to recover from past downturns.

A typical offshore well can cost $3 billion to $5 billion to drill, and can take five to 10 years from exploration to production. But they can reliably produce oil for at least 20 years.

Given the time and money required to deploy them, energy companies tend to take a more cautious approach to offshore drilling especially when its impossible to know what the price of oil will be when crude starts flowing years later.

Its a nerve-wracking business, said OLeary, a Houston attorney specializing in the energy sector. This business is not for the faint of heart.

Pandemic strikes: Several BP offshore workers test positive for coronavirus

Offshore energy companies tend to respond relatively quickly to oil crashes, idling rigs and laying off workers. But they are deliberately slower to bring them back as the price of oil rebounds.

Spending this year on offshore projects is expected to plunge by 80 percent to $20 billion from $104 billion in 2019 commitments, according to Rystad. At the worst of the 2014-16 oil bust, offshore spending dropped to $38 billion.

The sharp spending decline means fewer operating rigs and fewer jobs. The number of working offshore rigs declined in June to 448, off 34 percent from the high of 683 in 2014, and about 70 fewer than the IHS Markit 2020 forecast average of 521. Meanwhile the number of offshore jobs in the Gulf of Mexico, which grew to almost 70,000 last year will decline by 13 percent to about 60,000 this year, the National Ocean Industries Association said.

The number of workers in the offshore segment declined by 22 percent during the 2014-16 oil bust half of the decline seen in onshore shale, according to Rystad. But shale production, which requires less upfront capital and short drilling cycles, was able to rebound more quickly, bring back most of the jobs it lost during the downturn. Offshore didnt bring as many jobs back, Fitzsimmons said.

Next wave: Big Oil shows new commitments to offshore African projects

With the coronavirus pandemic, getting workers back into the office to work on new offshore projects will be difficult and likely further delay the recovery, Fitzsimmons said.

Having a project team of 400 engineers all spread out and working from home, its another challenge, he said. You need people in offices to design these big projects. So its best, if youre investing billions of dollars, to wait out the pandemic. The reserves will still be there.

Meanwhile, energy companies are busy idling and mothballing offshore rigs, known in the industry as warm-stacking and cold-stacking rigs, respectively.

Warm-stacked rigs have a limited crew on board to keep some machinery running, while cold-stacked rigs may be vacated and production suspended. Most companies are warm-stacking their rigs in hopes that prices will recover more quickly than expected.

Houston-based Seadrill, for example, decided to mothball a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico for up to three months after a drilling contract ended, forcing the company to lay off its 135 idled workers.

Such layoffs, said Rystads Fitzsimmons, could spell more trouble for offshore companies when things turn around.

The talent and experience drain is going to happen again, Fitzsimmons said. Thats going to delay the restart because the people just arent going to be here. Its a long ripple effect in a long cycle.

paul.takahashi@chron.com

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Not for the faint of heart: Oil bust lashes offshore industry still in recovery - Houston Chronicle

Human beings have been turning the power of the wind into energy for over a thousand years.

Across about 100 countries, wind is harnessed often with the familiar, sometimes elegant technology of wind turbines. Increasingly, those windmills are in clusters offshore, usually in an ocean; the boom in offshore is especially helping European countries meet renewable energy targets. Offshore wind is really just getting going in the U.S, but states along the East Coast are making big bets on offshore wind.

Now, officials in Ohio have signed on to an offshore wind project on Lake Erie. There are some conditions, including time of day restrictions. But if completed, the six windmills planned off the coast of Cleveland would be the first of their kind on the Great Lakes. And the technology could again gain interest further west on the Great Lakes.

A decade ago, the Great Lakes region heard a lot of talk about wind energy. There was a proposal in Ludington, Mich. The state of New York showed an interest on Lake Erie.

Here in Illinois, the talk about offshore wind on Lake Michigan was centered in the North Shore suburb of Evanston, and some people from Evanston are still pursuing offshore wind for Illinois today.

The story begins in 2010. At that time, the city of Evanston was looking seriously into offshore wind as part of its overall climate action strategy.

Evanston doesnt have open space for a big solar project, but it has a good stretch of open lakefront, so offshore wind looked worth pursuing. Then-Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl formed a group called The Mayors Offshore Wind Farm Committee. It was made up of residents who ranged from a middle school teacher to the ex-director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. There was an attorney, an engineer, an architect, an environmentalist.

The committee asked for proposals around an offshore wind concept from wind developers, and two responded. There was a wide range of reactions to what the two companies suggested for the committee. One member of the working group didnt want to partner with either of the developers. Another didnt want to increase costs to Evanston businesses. One committee member had safety and maintenance concerns.

The environmentalist on Evanstons Wind Farm Committee was Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club. Ultimately, Darin recalled, most committee members remained interested in offshore wind, but after a year of study he said they came to the conclusion that offshore wind was viable in Lake Michigan, but for infrastructure and economic reasons Evanston couldnt do it itself.

Offshore wind had some serious requirements that made it next to impossible for Evanston. First, where do you plug in the turbines?

Evanston didnt have a suitable place to plug a wind farm into a power grid. Most wind installations try to hold down infrastructure costs by plugging into the grid where transformers and high voltage transmission lines are already set up. Evanston doesnt have an existing power plant on its lakeshore to plug into. Another thing Evanston didnt have was a port to assemble portions of the windmills and haul them out into the lake; in the report, there was talk of a staging area on the lakefront. But the assemblage is extensive and requires special facilities at an actual port. And on the economic front, Evanston alone couldnt guarantee enough customers to kickstart development and overcome high upfront costs.

Getting the legal authority to build offshore wind in the lake is possibly the toughest challenge. The people of Illinois own the lake bed. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources would have to grant a permit. A difficult process all by itself (there are many environmental hurdles), the project would have to survive a public trust challenge to the permit. Public trust doctrine contends that waterways are open and free to all and cannot be appropriated for private interests.

Joel Brammeier with the Alliance for the Great Lakes says Illinois has a particularly rigorous and strong backing of the public trust doctrine. Indeed. The predecessor organization to the Alliance, the Lake Michigan Federation, used public trust doctrine to successfully sue the state for granting Loyola University 18.5 acres of Lake Michigan for landfill. Illinois courts have ruled in favor of a public roadway, a public water treatment plant, public exposition facilities and public football stadium. Courts, though, have also ruled against private railroad facilities and steel plants. When it comes to Lake Michigan, Brammeier said any attempt to put wind turbines in Lake Michigan would probably be decided by the courts, and its a high bar.

Theres a string of familiar public objections to offshore wind. In Clevelands case, a recreational boating association registered objections. Some birding and bat groups ended up getting conditions put into Clevelands approval process where the windmills would get turned off at night in the spring and summer (very possibly a deal breaker). Finally, theres the familiar complaint that windmills detract from the skyline. But advocates for offshore wind point to a poll in New Jersey that showed when people are shown pictures of turbines, or windmills, at various points offshore, the farther away they are, the more acceptable the idea becomes. For some perspective, Darin of the Sierra Club said when windmills are 6 miles out, theyre about the size of your thumbnail if you hold your arm out.

With all the hassles around offshore wind, why bother? Land-based wind is cheaper, and solar in Illinois has huge potential.

The answer is the big role offshore wind could play in the clean energy mix. While the U.S. is just getting started, theres a couple dozen countries that are using offshore wind as a key component to reach climate commitments. Britain now gets 11% of its energy from offshore wind and predicts its capacity will triple over the next 10 years. Ireland just fast tracked seven wind farms that will help it reach its goal of 70% renewable by 2030.

European countries have made offshore part of their climate goals and subsidize them strongly. Now states on the Atlantic coast in this country are beginning to do it, too. New York state passed legislation to support the development of enough offshore wind to power 6 million homes by 2035. Massachusetts is working on an Atlantic wind farm that should generate enough power for 400,000 homes.

Illinois is way behind on its renewable goals. Illinois has legal goals of 25% renewablesby 2025. The state still hasnt cracked 10% renewables, and land-based wind makes up almost all of Illinois 8% renewable portfolio. The governor has rhetorically committed to 100% renewable by 2050 and proposed energy reforms in the legislature target that goal.

The state would find it a lot easier to hit its renewable target with offshore wind in the mix. Offshore wind also has the advantage of being close to where the users are. Land-based wind is popping up around the state, but travels far to reach Cook County, for instance.

Encouraged by Evanstons effort and other activity around the Great Lakes, in 2011, the Illinois legislature created a Lake Michigan Offshore Wind Advisory Council. Its job was to work with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources on a report that gives the department methods for evaluating an offshore wind permit on Lake Michigan. Next, the legislature passed the Lake Michigan Wind Energy Act in 2013 to begin to unravel the economic challenges.

Former Gov. Bruce Rauners administration chose not to appoint a task force to examine those economic challenges, but the idea has new life with the Pritzker administration. Darin is on the new Offshore Wind Energy Economic Development Task Force that the governor established late last year. The Alliance for the Great Lakes is also part of that effort. So is the mayor of Waukegan, and for good reason. Waukegan is a city that has a port and a couple of power plant capacity places to plug into. Another location that meets the port/plug requirement is the Calumet Harbor area near the Illinois-Indiana border. Both locations need economic development. The committee hasnt met yet because of the COVID-19 crisis, but after it does, it has a year to develop a report on ways to overcome some of the economic hurdles to offshore wind. Darin thinks overcoming the economic hurdles lies in the commitment by both Chicago and Evanston to 100% renewable energy. He thinks those commitments could forge a pathway to the development of offshore wind.

Brammeier of Alliance of the Great Lakes said theyre keeping an open mind about offshore wind and he recognizes climate change as a huge threat to the Great Lakes. But, he said, Ive yet to see a compelling vision that checks all the boxes and shows that this is a sustainable approach for the Great Lakes.

Brammeier wants answers about disposal: You dont want a bunch of rusting hulks in the lake 30 years from now, he said. And he weighs the value of the lake as an aesthetic resource: Do we really want to look at windmills off 63rd street beach for 3% of our energy mix?

Chris Wissemann lives in Evanston, and was on the Mayors Wind Farm Report from 2010. Wisseman also served on the advisory panel that helped create the states report on offshore wind. Hes now the CEO of Diamond Offshore Wind Development, a Mitsubishi-owned firm that works in Europe but has an eye on the Great Lakes. He said proponents of offshore wind in the Great Lakes have to show local, serious stakeholders that it can work here. He said whats needed is what he calls a pathway to responsible development. Possibly, a pilot project near an industrial harbor, and getting good data on what happens with birds and fish 5 miles out into the lake.

But Wissemann thinks offshore wind could easily provide a third of Illinois energy alongside land-based wind farms and solar. For his part, Darin thinks theres a few nuclear reactors worth of energy waiting in Lake Michigan.

Many observers believe Clevelands offshore wind project wont move forward because of the restrictions imposed. The developer was stunned by the decision and called it not an approval.

Darin said that leaves the door open for Illinois to be the first offshore wind development in the Great Lakes a good thing because it would mean investment and jobs in Illinois. Special kinds of port facilities and ships are required, and that infrastructure also might be used for other projects. Darin and Wissemann think 5 years is about the earliest a project could get off the ground.

To Darin, that timeline seems too long. He points to 10 years as about the amount of time we all have to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

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The Uphill Battle For Offshore Wind In Illinois - WBEZ

EWE has won a contract by rsted for maintenance work on the two substations of the Gode Wind 1 and 2 offshore wind project in Germany.

The companys offshore subsidiary EWE OSS will take care of the low-voltage areas and the sub-systems of the substations over the next twelve months.

By working with EWE Offshore Service & Solutions, we can further increase the efficiency of the operational management of our Gode Wind 1 and 2 offshore wind farms. We look forward to a successful collaboration with an experienced service provider, said Niels Kruse, responsible for the operation of the Gode Wind 1 and 2 wind farms at rsted.

EWE stated that in total its service teams now take care of nine substations in the German and Dutch North Sea and one on land.

Locatedsome 45km off the coast of Lower Saxony, the 582 MW Gode Wind 1 and 2 has been in operation since 2017.

The project comprises 97 Siemens 6 MW turbines, making it one of the largest offshore wind projects in Germany.

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EWE to Take Care of Gode Wind 1 & 2 Substations - Offshore WIND

6/22/2020

Trendsetter Trident Intervention System

HOUSTON Trendsetter Engineering introduced its Trident Intervention System, designed for rapid reconfiguration in the field, providing the flexibility to conduct intervention riser, riserless wireline intervention and hydraulic stimulation operations all with a single system. This modular approach to intervention will result in reduced well maintenance costs, improved production and increased intervention operational efficiency.

The Trident System, initially delivered in the Intervention Riser System (IRS) configuration, provides a 6 3/8 through bore and is suitable for all types of well intervention operations up to 15,000 psi and in water depths up to 10,000 ft.

Tridents robust Well Control Package (WCP) is built around the unique and reliable shear/seal design of the Interventek Revolution valves, providing a robust safety system in an extremely compact package.

With an overall WCP stackup height under 16 and a combined Emergency Disconnect Package / Lower Riser Package weight of just over 67,000 lbs, Trident is uniquely suited for rapid mobilization to any region and integration into almost any rig of availability, including many older generation MODUs which may be limited in both crane capacity and tree cart stackup height.

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Trendsetter introduces modular offshore intervention system - WorldOil

Total, Shell and Equinor have joined Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapults UK Floating Offshore Wind Center of Excellence (FOWCoE), ORE Catapult has revealed.

The center focuses on all areas of floating wind activity in the UK across four key workstreams - comprising technology development, supply chain and operations, development and consent, and delivering net zero according to ORE Catapult.

The aim of the group - which works closely with the government - is to reduce the cost of energy from floating wind, accelerate the build-out of floating farms, create opportunities for the UK supply chain and drive innovations in manufacturing, installation and operations and maintenance.

Totals ambition is to become the responsible energy major and we believe that the UK offers many opportunities that will help us fulfil that ambition, Jean-Luc Guiziou, the managing director of Total E&P UK, said in a company statement.

The UK already has one of the most well developed offshore wind markets in the world. Investing in the development of floating offshore wind will develop that further and as such we are delighted to join FOWCoE, he added.

Vincent Fromont, the general manager of floating wind at Shell, said, this type of collaboration is key if we are to deliver cleaner power from wind at commercial scale.

We look forward to tackling the challenge of accelerating floating technology and learning together with our new partners, he added.

Sebastian Bringsvaerd, the head of floating wind development at Equinor, said, we believe driving innovation within floating offshore wind is best done by fostering collaboration across the industry.

That more and more energy companies join forces is a testament to the potential of floating offshore wind in the UK and globally, he added.

ORE Catapult is theUKs leading technology innovation and research center for offshore renewable energy, according to its website. The organization launched the multi-million dollar FOWCoE in October last year to drive forward the development of next generation offshore wind technologies.

To contact the author, emailandreas.exarheas@rigzone.com

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Energy Giants Join Offshore Wind Group - Rigzone

A consortium including three of the largest Danish pension and energy companies is ready to finance and operate the recently approved energy island in the Danish North Sea.

Earlier this week, the Danish parliament approved a new Climate Action Plan which calls for the development of two energy islands, one in the North Sea and one in the Baltic Sea, with a combined capacity of 5 GW by 2030.

The new plan also approves the development and construction of one more wind farm in the Baltic Sea with the capacity of up to 1 GW.

The largest of the new energy islands is going to be an artificial island in the Danish North Sea.

The island is going to be established by 2030 at the latest with 3 GW offshore wind connected through it.

In time, the island will connect 10 GW offshore wind and host electricity storage and power-to-X, as well as housing, O&M facilities, and HVDC converters for transmission and interconnectors.

PensionDanmark, PFA, and SEAS-NVE are ready to finance the energy island, initially with up to EUR 50 million to develop the project.

The partners are assisted by the green infrastructure investment company, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).

The consortium plans to finance and develop the project entirely without government funding.

The energy island in the North Sea is a very visionary project which will play an important role in the economically sound expansion of offshore wind capacity, said Torben Mger Pedersen, CEO of PensionDanmark.

At the same time, developing and constructing the island will create many new Danish jobs that will help the Danish economy in recovering from the effects of COVID-19. It is therefore our hope as investors that the process going forward will be fast and inclusive, making it possible for industrial players to mitigate the risk associated with such a huge infrastructure project.

The partners see the states ambition of an energy island as very visionary and value-adding for Danish offshore technology. Design and construction of the energy island is a large and demanding project, but can be implemented with the existing technology, the consortium said.

A wind island in the North Sea will add even more momentum to the green transition, and the concept has global potential. That is why we at PFA are ready, together with the partners in the consortium, to lift this historic project and thereby ensure that PFAs 1.3 million customers savings are put to good work in the best possible service, said Kasper Ahrndt Lorenzen, Group CIO of PFA Pension.

The energy island will be developed in stages in line with increasing Danish electricity demand, the development of electricity storage technology or, for example, Power-to-X, as well as the connection of the island to other countries around the North Sea.

In the future, societys energy supply must be covered to a greater extent by renewable energy if we are to succeed with the green transition, said Jesper Hjulmand, CEO, SEAS-NVE.

SEAS-NVE has a long tradition of taking considerable responsibility for developing the Danish energy system. A development that is driven by strong professional insight. Among other things, this is the knowledge we will bring into play in connection with the energy island. Most recently, we have specific experience from energy storage experiments.

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Danish Consortium Raring to Bankroll North Sea Energy Island - Offshore WIND

Buffeted by breaking waves and a brisk ocean breeze, the town of Rodanthe balances on a precarious shard of land along the Outer Banks. From here, the eastern-most point in North Carolina, it is less than 45 miles to an expanse of the sea where energy corporations plan to puncture the ocean bed in search of oil and gas.

But first, seismic testing companies must do their reconnaissance. To do so, they deploy a boat towing an array of 24 airguns firing every 10 to 15 seconds for 24 hours each day, as many as 208 days a year. At low frequencies, the sound ping-pongs among the ridges and valleys of the ocean bed, and the returning echo patterns can reveal the locations of the energy deposits.

The sounds also reveal the vulnerability of sea life to human-made intrusions. Scientific studies have shown the sound can injure, kill and deafen marine life, including fish, whales and dolphins forcing them to flee their habitats and blunting their desire to eat and breed.

Last week, the federal government overruled North Carolinas objection to seismic testing off the coast, saying the activity proposed by the company WesternGeco is in the national interest. The decision allows the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management to issue permits for seismic testing on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, roughly from Maryland to Florida. Four more companies have requested permits.

Environmental coastal advocates condemned the decision.

The decision to overrule the state shows the unwillingness of the federal government to listen to the wishes of the people, said Larry Baldwin, Crystal Coast waterkeeper. That arrogance goes even further when a decision by the state of North Carolina, which has been very outspoken against seismic and drilling, is completely ignored.

This news again shows the total disregard for the citizens of North Carolina by this administration, said Oceana Senior Campaign Organizer Randy Sturgill of Wilmington. President Trumps radical offshore drilling plan is a threat to all coastal communities. Seismic blasting and offshore drilling threatens our fishing, tourism, and recreation industries and everyone who visits or calls our coast home.

The decision was signed by Neil Jacobs, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere. (Jacobs was a central figure in Sharpiegate during Hurricane Dorian, in which a forecast path was altered to align with President Trumps erroneous statement that Alabama could be hit by the storm. Earlier this month, a federal investigation found Jacobs engaged in the misconduct intentionally, knowingly, or in reckless disregard for the NOAAs scientific integrity policy.)

The targeted area for seismic testing and energy drilling is known as The Point, about 38 miles from Manteo and 45 miles from Rodanthe. It is home to 60 species of whales, including the endangered Right Whale, and dolphins, said Doug Nowacek, professor and chair of Marine Conservation Technology at Duke Universitys Marine Laboratory. It is one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the western North Atlantic Ocean maybe the Atlantic entirely. For some species of whales, like the sensitive Cuviers beaked whale,the density is higher than anywhere else in the world.

In April 2014, WesternGeo applied to BOEM for a permit to conduct seismic testing on a stretch of the Outer Continental Shelf from Virginia to South Carolina. Then-Gov. Pat McCrory supported the testing and potential drilling.

But under Gov. Roy Coopers administration, the NC Department of Environmental Quality contested the permits, arguing that seismic testing, even conducted 40-plus miles off the coast, would reduce the volume of fish catches and harm the states fishing industry. That sector provides 50,000 jobs, $1.5 billion in annual income, $3.9 billion in annual sales.

Initially the state prevailed. In 2017, BOEM denied the applications of all five companies, saying the value of obtaining the information from the surveys does not outweigh the risks of obtaining said informatics.

But shortly after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order to expedite oil and gas exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf. As a result BOEM rescinded its denial of the permits and re-evaluated them.

In its recent decision, Neil Jacobs cited the need to for the U.S. to be energy independent. Although the U.S. is a net exporter of energy, that doesnt mean the U.S. has energy self-sufficiency, the ruling read.

Our energy economy is trending toward wind and solar, said Erin Carey, director of coastal programs for the NC chapter of the Sierra Club. This action by the Trump administration is in line with propping up a dirty industry

The federal government also cited a scientific dispute over the long-term and permanent harm marine life, including sea turtles, scallops and plankton, can suffer from the effects of seismic testing. Many marine mammals in particular, rely on sound to navigate, and the frequencies of the air guns can interfere with their ability to do so.

For example, a research team including Nowacek tracked sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 2000s and found the closer they were to air guns, the lower their rate of foraging attempts.

The National Marine Fisheries Service acknowledges that some individual fin whales could experience minor permanent hearing loss that may affect their fitness meaning survival. But NMFS concluded the the harm doesnt rise to a population level consequence for the species.

The rest of whales suffered only minor and temporary hearing threshold shifts, according to NMFS.

NMFS also rebutted a study by Australian scientist R.D. McCauley, who found that the sounds from air guns killed plankton, the building block for the marine food chain. His team used just a single gun air gun pulled behind a boat, and measured the amount of plankton before and after it fired. They found a lot of dead plankton, Nowacek said.

A separate study, though, found no effect on plankton, but that air gun was only fired once in a pond, instead of the tens of thousands of times that are required to map the sea floor.

In fact, since as many as five companies could receive permits to conduct the seismic tests within the same area the information would likely be redundant the number of shots and volume of sound could be overwhelming.

NMFS says it has found only temporary and localized kills of marine life and only at relative close distances.

Nowacek said several studies have revealed that fish catches decrease after a seismic survey. Its unclear if the animals fled, died or were injured. There is this idea that displacement is OK, but its not always, Nowacek said.

As a scientist, my gut reaction is the jury is still out, Nowacek said. But if seismic testing is going to continue, we need to really understand the impacts on turtles, fish and plankton. Seismic surveys are among the loudest sounds we put in the water. Air guns are controlled explosions. If all of the surveys occur as proposed, the number of shots is staggering.

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Trump administration overrules NC, approves offshore seismic testing for oil and gas deposits - ncpolicywatch.com

Hyundai Heavy Industries announced on June 23 that it will integrate the Shipbuilding Business Division and Offshore Business Division on July 1 as the latter has little work to do.

The shipbuilder plans to relocate workers of the Offshore Business Division to the Merchant Ship Section to prevent them from loitering and use empty inner walls of the offshore plant building site to build merchant ships such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.

In addition, the company will scale back its organization by about 20 percent through the integration of departments doing similar work.

Hyundai Heavy Industries Group has decided not to make promotions during its regular personnel reshuffle in the first half of 2020. Instead, it will force about 20 percent of its executives to quit. As a result, the total number of executives at Hyundai Heavy Industries Group is expected to fall by 50 from previous 260.

This is not the first time that Hyundai Heavy Industries Group has come up with an intensive restructuring plan. In 2014, when the group suffered from less profitable orders, it ousted more than 30 percent of its executives. In 2016, it also went through a restructuring to reduce 25 percent of the executives at five affiliates as the shipbuilding industry continued to suffer a slump. Industry observers say that further restructuring actions are likely to be taken in light of the 2016 experience.

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HHI to Integrate Shipbuilding Business Division and Offshore Business Division - BusinessKorea

The Government of Lithuania has settled on the position of the countrys first offshore wind farm, with the capacity of up to 700 MW, in the Baltic Sea.

The government has decided that the wind farm will be built and commissioned by 2030 at the site previously proposed and considered in the draft Government Resolution, which has now been adopted.

The site covers an area of 137.5 square kilometres, with a distance from shore of approximately 29 kilometres, an average water depth of 35 metres, and an average wind speed of approximately 9 m/s.

The tender to select the owner and developer of the wind farm is scheduled to be held in 2023, the government said.

Prior to this period, the approved spatial planning and environmental procedures the special plan, the strategic environmental impact assessment, and the environmental impact assessment will be performed by the Lithuanian Energy Agency.

The project is expected to attract around EUR 1 billion in private investments. Once commissioned, the wind farm is expected to generate up to three TWh of electricity annually, corresponding to one-quarter of the countrys current electricity consumption.

By employing offshore wind, we will achieve ambitious renewable energy targets and reduce electricity imports from other countries. Our goal is to develop offshore wind in the most efficient and competitive way, and at the same time it will be an opportunity to attract world-class investors to Lithuanian energy, said Lithuanias Minister of Energy ygimantas Vaiinas.

Amendments to Law

The government also approved the concept of wind power development in the Lithuanian maritime territory prepared by the Ministry of Energy, which proposes changes in the legal regulation taking into account the recommendations of a working group consisting of state institutions and social partners.

The government instructed the Ministry of Energy to prepare draft laws regulating the support scheme for offshore wind farms by 1 July.

The draft legislation will then be submitted to the interested institutions for coordination, and to start coordinating the proposed support scheme with the European Commission.

In addition, taking into account the experience of foreign countries and the fact that the development of networks for the connection of planned power plants in the maritime area may take up to eight years, the government proposed to the transmission system operator to start preparatory work for the connection of offshore wind farms to the grid.

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Lithuania Selects Where 700 MW Offshore Wind Farm Will Be Built - Offshore WIND

The ScotWind Leasing programme is being run by Crown Estate Scotland in its role as manager of Scotland's seabed. It is the first round of offshore wind leasing in Scottish waters in a decade.

Investors and developers can register their interest in obtaining an 'option agreement' with Crown Estate Scotland through an online portal. Successful applications will be granted leases to build offshore wind farms in one of the areas of seabed that will be identified as suitable in the Scottish government's sectoral marine plan (SMP) for offshore wind, which has been published in draft form.

Crown Estate Scotland is anticipating closing applications between October 2020 and early 2021, depending on when the SMP is formally adopted.

Applicants will be required to prepare and submit a 'supply chain development statement', setting out how they plan to engage with and utilise the supply chain to successfully develop their projects. This statement must include information on the geographical location of supply chain activity and evidence of how the commitments in the plan can be fulfilled.

In their launch summary document (7-page / 156KB PDF), Crown Estate Scotland said that it was encouraging "realistic" supply chain commitments. The ScotWind Leasing process does not impose any requirements on level or location of supply chain impact, but commitments will be incorporated into the final option agreement with contractual remedies possible if the commitments are not met.

"More detail on the supply chain requirements for applicants has been keenly awaited, though this remains a moving target as CES has invited feedback on its supply chain commitment proposals by the end of July," said renewable energy expert Alan Cookof Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law. "Shortly after the adopted sectoral marine plan becomes available, they will publish an addendum to the ScotWind Leasing launch documentation which will confirm final details of their requirements. Although bidders supply chain development proposals are not to form part of the scoring which will determine which applicants for seabed areas are successful, this will nevertheless be an important document and will form the basis for contractual commitments in the option agreements which will be granted to successful bidders and to which bidders will then be held."

"There is a tension for bidders between, on the one hand, addressing the aspirations of politicians and potential local supply chain participants and, on the other hand, developing projects to be as economic as possible in order to be able to bid successfully under the Contract for Difference subsidy regime. New global entrants to the Scottish offshore development market may also feel less of an obligation to be seen to be meeting politicians and unions local supply chain aspirations than existing Scottish/UK-based players. More bullish bidders may even be tempted to submit weak supply chain commitments on the basis that the CES launch documentation makes it clear that this will be irrelevant to the process of awarding options over seabed areas anyway," Cook said.

Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse said that the leasing round "presents an opportunity to help develop our strategic economic response to the Covid-19 pandemic".

"As we emerge from the crisis, we have a chance to re-imagine the Scotland around us and to begin building a greener, fairer and more equal society and economy," he said.

Crown Estate Scotland said that total investment in ScotWind Leasing could ultimately surpass 8 billion and deliver enough electricity to power every home in Scotland, saving over six million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year.

John Robertson, head of energy and infrastructure at Crown Estate Scotland, said: "Offshore wind is currently one of the cheapest forms of new electricity generation and Scotland is perfectly poised to host major new projects, with a well-established energy skills sector as well as some of the best natural marine resources in Europe".

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Scotland launches offshore wind seabed leasing programme - Out-Law.com