OFFSHORE OIL

OFFSHORE OIL and gas development in the United States since the mid-1970s has responded largely to pressures from two sources: the efforts of the federal government to reduce dependence on foreign oil and efforts by environmentalists and conservationists to reduce energy consumption, especially of fossil fuels.

Aside from the Arab oil embargo of 1973–1974 and the U.S. embargo on Iranian oil, in effect from 1979 to 1981, the trend in the industry has been toward low prices and oversupply of foreign crude oil. It was not until the oil shocks of the 1970s that there was an incentive to expand offshore exploration and production. With the low prices that have prevailed since 1986, expensive and labor-intensive recovery techniques have lost their economic feasibility. Since the 1970s U.S. energy policy has emphasized environmental protection and the conservation of U.S. reserves. The federal government has developed stringent environmental regulations governing the exploration and development of offshore crude-oil fields. Opposition to offshore drilling is strong, especially in California. As early as 1975, California's State Lands Commission halted drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel, and the National Energy Policy Act of 1992 came close to banning offshore drilling. Federal regulations imposed a leasing moratorium on sections of the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Placing limitations on offshore oil drilling remained a popular political move into the next decade. For instance, in 2000 President Bill Clinton issued an executive order creating New Ocean Conservation Zones and forbidding drilling in such designated areas. In 2002 the federal government under President George W. Bush bought back from various petroleum companies the right to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida. The Bush administration also urged Congress to re-open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, but the proposal was stalled by stiff opposition in both houses of Congress and among outraged environ-mental activists.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Freudenburg, William R., and Robert Gramling. Oil in Troubled Waters: Perception, Politics, and the Battle over Offshore Drilling. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Gramling, Robert. Oil on the Edge: Offshore Development, Conflict, Gridlock. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Stephen J.Randall/a. e.

See alsoEnergy Industry ; Government Regulation of Business ; Louisiana ; Petroleum Industry ; Petroleum Prospecting and Technology ; Tidelands .

offshore oil and gas. Economically offshore oil and gas are the most important reserves in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of many countries. They were generated by chemical transformation from the remains of marine plants and animals that sedimented to the bottom of stagnant anoxic shallow seas during past geological eras, and were then buried by movements of the earth. Initially deep within the rocks the high pressures and temperatures of 50–100 °C (122–212 °F) converted the organic remains into kerogen, a solid, waxy, organic substance, a forerunner of oil and gas. Further pressure cooking at temperatures of 100–160 °C (212–310 °F) converted the kerogen to oils and at still higher temperatures to natural gas (methane). The oil and gas then migrated laterally along porous rock strata, sandstones, or salt deposits, eventually becoming trapped where the strata domed or at faults where impermeable layers stopped further migration. In the North Sea the first gas was recovered in 1967, and the first oil in 1975. An example of a North Sea oil field is Forties. Discovered in 1970, it began production in 1975 and in 1982 produced its one billionth barrel of oil. It extends over a distance of 56 kilometres (35 mls.), covers an area larger than the city of Aberdeen, and each of its four main platforms, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta, contains four times more steel than the Eiffel Tower.

To date about 132 million tonnes of oil and gas have been recovered in Britain's EEZ, annually contributing £4 billion a year in taxes since 1984, and in 2004 the industry was employing about 300,000 people. Even so UK oil and gas production is only about 4% of global production. The most important reserves are still in the Middle East, but many offshore regions have large untapped reserves, especially in deposits under the Caspian Sea, and under more than 1,000 metres (3,250 ft) of water off Brazil and Angola. Oil pollution remains an unresolved issue, with serious spills from tankers and other sources occurring with depressing regularity. The industry is concerned about what will happen when most reserves eventually run dry, maybe before, or during, the second half of the 21st century, but many environmentalists believe that the climate change induced by burning all these hydrocarbons will by then have disrupted the world as we know it.

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M. V. Angel