Offshore Energy

 

Offshore Royalty Relief Plan Frustrates Industry. According to E&E News, “The Trump administration’s guidance for how offshore oil and gas operators can seek royalty relief during the pandemic adds little clarity to a thorny political topic, industry sources say. The Interior Department’s offshore regulatory agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, ‘anticipates approving’ oil and gas operators’ requests for coronavirus-related royalty relief if they meet certain criteria, according to guidance documents released yesterday and obtained by E&E News. But those criteria largely exist already, and the underlying authority is spelled out in federal law. Industry advocates had hoped for more details on how the process would be expedited. Royalty relief mechanisms for offshore operators can take months to years to complete, according to industry. The guidance has frustrated expectations that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt would directly intervene and provide relief. ‘Ultimately, you’ve got a political problem,’ one source close to the industry discussion said. The oil demand crisis, caused by the chilled economy under COVID-19 and existing geopolitical tensions over production, drove the price of crude to a historic negative $37 last week. When the depth of the price crush became apparent, independent offshore firms began to press Interior to reduce royalties as a rapid lifeline to producers that were contemplating shutting in wells. ‘The first check that goes out the door is to the federal government,’ said Tim Duncan, president and CEO of Talos Energy Inc., an offshore operator.” [E&E News, 5/1/20 (=)]

 

Fisheries & Marine Life

 

Commercial Fishing Industry On The Ropes As Pandemic-Era Shoppers Avoid Seafood. According to Politico, “Fisherman Marty Scanlon has not returned to his Long Island home since leaving for North Carolina at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in New York. Scanlon, a longliner captain from Hauppauge left for North Carolina in early March — roughly the same time the first case of Covid-19 emerged in Manhattan. In the weeks that followed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered most businesses to close, effective March 22, casting a pall over New York City restaurants in a once-bustling culinary capital. Business for Scanlon has been brutal ever since. ‘We basically don’t have the money to go home,’ Scanlon said, over the phone. ‘We can’t go home til we pay our bills.’ Scanlon’s plight is reverberating across the Northeast. While meat, poultry and produce remain in demand, seafood, a once-reliable market, has been swapped for the whims of the home chef who has grown unused to, and perhaps slightly intimidated by the prospect of storing and preparing fish. And it’s putting an $11 billion industry in New York and New Jersey on the ropes, with as much as a 30 percent drop in revenue since the coronavirus took hold in the region. Scanlon and his crew aim to scrape 1,000 pounds of mixed swordfish and tuna each night, but it has become increasingly difficult to bear each trip’s financial costs in the face of dwindling profits, he said.” [Politico, 5/4/20 (=)]

 

LED Lights Halve Unwanted Fish In Nets, Research Finds. According to The Guardian, “A simple technique to ‘illuminate the exits’ in trawl fishing nets can almost halve the numbers of unwanted catch, new research has found, potentially protecting both the environment and fishermen’s livelihoods. Attaching LED lights to larger holes in nets, intended to allow non-target species to escape, dramatically reduced the numbers killed unnecessarily, a team from Bangor University found. The research, published in Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, inverts an old fishing technique of shining a light on water to attract fish into a net. The study, conducted between June and August 2017, tested the effect of lights in reducing the number of haddock and flatfish caught in a queen scallop fishery off the Isle of Man. It found that while existing devices to reduce bycatch (species caught unintentionally) were effective at shallower depths of 29-40 metres, they had no effect in deeper, darker waters of 45-95 metres. But once LEDs were added to these ‘exits’ in deep water, haddock bycatch was reduced by 47% and flatfish by 25%. Bycatch is a problem in fisheries worldwide because it inflicts further damage on often depleted non-target species, and kills mammals and seabirds that become entangled in nets.” [The Guardian, 5/1/20 (=)]

 

Looser Restrictions On Fishing Threatens Bluefin Tuna, Suit Says. According to Bloomberg Environment, “The National Marine Fisheries Service’s decision to reopen two areas to pelagic longline fishing puts Western Atlantic bluefin tuna at risk and violated four federal laws, according to a lawsuit filed in a Maryland federal court. NMFS removed restrictions on pelagic longline fishing gear in the Spring Gulf of Mexico Gear Restricted Area and the Northeastern United States Closed Area off the coast of New Jersey in a final rule April 2. The reopening violated the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Administrative Procedure Act, the suit filed by two...” [Bloomberg Environment, 4/30/20 (=)]

 

‘Prince Of Whales’ Gets Partial Win In Dispute Over Fishing Rope. According to Bloomberg Environment, “Massachusetts officials must seek an incidental take permit under the Endangered Species Act before issuing licenses allowing fishermen to use vertical buoy ropes due to the threat they pose to endangered North Atlantic right whales, a Massachusetts federal court ruled. Richard Max Strahan will likely be able to show that the ropes have harmed and will continue to harm the whales, despite substantial efforts of state agencies and local fishermen to protect them, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts said Thursday.” [Bloomberg Environment, 5/1/20 (=)]

 

 

Please do not respond to this email.

If you have questions or comments please contact mitch@beehivedc.com