About 130 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast, 100,000 tons of steel are floating in the Gulf of Mexico, a symbol of hope for oil and gas companies.
This chunk of metal is a deep-sea platform owned by Shell called Appomattox, where rigs collect oil and gas extracted from reservoirs thousands of feet below the ocean floor. Equipment on the platform pipes fuel to shore.
Politicians and business leaders have pledged to cut global warming emissions to net zero by 2050. But oil companies like Shell are betting that the world will need oil and gas for decades to come. To meet that demand, they are expanding offshore oil and gas drilling into deeper and deeper waters, especially here in the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil company executives argue that offshore production is not only vital for powering cars, trucks and power plants, but is also better for the planet than drilling on land. That's because such operations emit far fewer greenhouse gases that cause global warming than producing the same amount of oil and gas on land, according to industry estimates.
“By the way, the world will still need oil in 2050,” Shell CEO Wael Sawan said in a recent interview. “Emissions must continue to decrease.”
A report released last year by the National Marine Industry Association found that extracting a barrel of oil from the Gulf of Mexico produces 3 more greenhouse gas emissions than producing a barrel of oil from oil fields in U.S. territories. It is said to be less than one-fold. , the industry association for the offshore oil, gas and wind industries. (These numbers do not include emissions produced when fossil fuels are burned in engines and power plants. These emissions are much higher than those from oil and gas production and refining.) )
Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has declined for several years since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010 caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. But oil production in the Gulf has increased over the past decade. The renewed interest in offshore production is part of a larger trend. The United States recently set records for oil production, extracting more crude oil than any other country.
A surge in oil and gas production in the United States has climate activists and scientists hoping the energy industry will pivot more quickly to cleaner fuels and technologies such as wind, solar power and electric vehicles. giving a warning.
“We're not talking about shutting down oil production today,” said Brettney Hardy, senior attorney with Earthjustice's Oceans Program, a nonprofit environmental law group. “But no matter how you look at it, there is a real imperative to accelerate the transition to clean energy. Nothing the industry is doing right now is going to help that transition.”
For many environmentalists, the potential for disaster from marine fossil fuel production is significant. The spill caused by BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caused significant damage to marine life, fisheries, and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
The spill drew attention to the rice whale, which lives only in the Gulf of Mexico and is classified as an endangered species by the federal government. Due to accidents such as the Deepwater Horizon spill and ship collisions, fewer than 100 of these whales remain.
“We've all been burned once by the Deepwater Horizon, so there's good reason for that concern and concern,” said the director, who served on the National Academies committee that investigated the spill. said Najmeddin Meshkati, professor of engineering at the University of Southern California.
The Biden administration plans to scale back lease sales for oil drilling in the Gulf, which environmentalists have argued will help protect rice whales. In August, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management reduced the leasable area from 73 million acres to 67 million acres.
But in November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the administration's plan. A month later, the oil company offered $382 million for the rights to drill for even more oil and gas.
Oil company executives say offshore oil operations are now much less dangerous thanks to advances in technology and improved standards and regulations. “Offshore oil and gas exploration and production is the safest it has ever been,” said Holly Hopkins, vice president of upstream policy at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group.
Energy companies like drilling in the Gulf, especially in the deep sea, where oil and gas are plentiful. As of the end of 2023, the number of deepwater offshore platforms in the United States was more than three times the number of shallowwater, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute. Just 14 years ago, it was much the same.
Federal government analysts estimate that oil production in the Gulf of Mexico will increase through 2027. Natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to remain roughly flat until the early 2030s.
Shell is the largest oil and gas producer in the region's waters. The company says its outsize presence in the Gulf is reflected in Appomattox, which has a displacement greater than the world's largest aircraft carrier.
The platform went online in 2019 and can accommodate up to 180 people. The equipment remains in place while the ship drills wells nearby and connects those wells with pipes to a platform where the equipment separates the oil, natural gas, and water.
Shell recently launched Whale, a small floating platform that can accommodate up to 60 people. Another unit “Sparta” is also under development. London-based global energy giant Shell operates a total of nine active platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, including four with built-in drilling rigs.
When reporters recently visited the Appomattox, there were about 130 people working on the ship, including oil and gas engineers, cooks, cleaners, medics, and laundry facility operators who keep the washers and dryers running 24 hours a day. Ta.
The crew will live on the platform for 14 consecutive days and work 12-hour shifts. They return to their homes around the world for two weeks and then return home for an additional 14 days.
Although they are aware that many think their industry is destroying the planet, there is a sense of pride among the passengers.
“There's another side to it that people don't talk about,” said Matt Franakin, Shell's Appomattox ballast control operator. “We know we need to reduce carbon emissions. But we still need fossil fuels.”
The platform is floating in the deep blue sea and you can't see anything else. Occasionally, a drilling rig ship appears in the distance. These ships scour the ocean floor for oil sources.
Rich Howe, Shell's executive vice president of global deepwater operations, said the platform will create an artificial reef that will attract schools of fish and dolphins to Appomattox.
Shell is not alone in expanding its offshore operations. BP, Chevron and other energy giants are also expanding or planning to expand their operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
“This is the birthplace of the world's deep seas,” Howe said. “A lot of technology was invented here.”
The Gulf Coast has an extensive network of pipelines and equipment that helps transport oil and gas directly to onshore facilities with little processing through pipelines. This will make the extraction of oil and gas from the Gulf's underground reservoirs more efficient, ultimately leading to lower emissions.
Technology has also reduced the need for offshore workers to travel by helicopter to platforms and drilling rigs. Some control room operators work remotely on land. And the companies say they are minimizing the amount of natural gas burned during a process called “flaring.”
“We want it to be as safe, affordable and low-carbon as possible,” said Andy, senior vice president of Gulf of Mexico and Canada for BP, which has five platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Krieger said.
But plans to invest in offshore production by major oil companies, particularly those based in Europe, are seen by some climate experts as a step back from corporate renewable energy investments in recent years.
Mr. Sawant, Shell's chief executive, has made it clear that the company should focus on the businesses it knows best: oil, natural gas and hydrogen. He said Shell should allow other companies, including those with financial and commercial ties, to develop renewable resources such as solar power.
That doesn't mean Shell isn't interested in new areas of the energy sector, he added. He cited electric vehicle charging as an area where the company plans to expand. To achieve this objective, Shell recently announced that it will close 1,000 gas stations in 2024 and 2025, representing about 2% of its retail outlets, and expand its electric vehicle charging network from around 55,000 locations today to 2030. announced that it will expand to 200,000 public charging points worldwide.
“At the end of the day, the real goal here is to bring in the multidimensional nature of the energy transition and be able to move this conversation that seems to be stuck in ‘is’,” Sawan said. he said. Is it oil and gas or solar and wind? That's all, and we need them in abundance. ”