Small Oil - 06/07/10 01:54 PM
by Mike Campbell
SMALL OIL COMES TO BELIZE
"If this was to happen to Belize, the prospect of 5,000 barrels per day of crude oil becoming available after a couple of months might well make the GOB declare national mourning for a day, and quickly change that for a month-long fiesta.
The pollution would get rid of seaside-monopolising tourists, regrettably kill any wildlife that remains after they have already destroyed the mangrove protection, but then allow the long-term natural recuperative process to kick in, and GOB to substitute a major stable revenue source for touristic whimsy."
Roaring Rocks 1 May 2010
"Personally I wouldn't use any dispersant at all like many countries around the world, but then I guess the whining from the USA would be deafening. I would rather see the beaches and wetlands coated in oil and let evaporation and bugs get rid of it. There is no question that you get more dead birds and reeds that way as well as some dead fish, but it all becomes compost or food within days anyway. Dispersants shift the problem out of sight but make the problems worse in the long term."
RigRat 31 May 2010
These two quotes are directly copied from a local message board (www.belizeforum.com) concerning Offshore Oil Exploration in Belize, the first was posted by RigRat on 31 May 2010 and the second by Roaring Rocks on 1 May 2010. RigRat is Jerry Larder, a Petroleum engineer with over 35 years of experience. He is the President and CEO of Welltech Group LLC which is an independent energy consultancy. The main focus of Welltech is to provide oil companies and governments with engineering expertise and is a permanent resident of Belize.
Roaring Rocks who is another oil industry professional lives both in the UK and near Belmopan but as of this date has refused to identify himself or his status in the country.
Mr. Jerry Larder states that Gulf spill is only the 40th largest spill in the world. He states "But the absolute root cause for this disaster was the government of the USA and the MMS for allowing a well with such a poor design to be drilled in the first place their slack supervision, and poor legislation."
While acknowledging that the GOB has to the best of his knowledge no viable emergency response plan and insufficient technical ability to inspect off shore drilling operations, Mr Larder did not respond when asked whether or not he would recommend proceeding with offshore drilling in Belize without these measures in place. He did say "most governments worldwide insist that oil companies have an emergency response plan. And they ensure it is in place before any drilling commences." Additionally he stated "...oil already surpasses Tourism as Belize's number one foreign currency earner. I also believe that oil and tourism can peacefully co-exist, and I firmly believe that Tourism does immeasurably more, and visible, damage to the environment. I would suggest that it would be an incredibly dimwitted thing to do to jeopardize oil exploration for the sake of tourism, Oil exploration doesn't generally rip out the mangroves, trample on the reefs, and the carbon footprint of their activities is minuscule compared to tourism."
However another oil industry professional with ties to Belize volunteered this "If I was to make a sweeping statement, I'd be inclined to urge Belize to get some outside help, since I do not believe there is the level of expertise necessary to properly oversee the proposed operation currently in the country.
Having said that, I would not expect the actual drilling operation to be anything but a routine job.
But - as we've seen - things can go wrong. My concern would be that there is almost no equipment available to tackle any kind of emergency, in the unlikely event that it is needed. Worse than that, since the amount of oil that I would expect to be found (if any) would be relatively small - it would not make financial sense for whoever would be responsible for cleaning up a spill (or whatever) to do so with any level of completeness.
Finally, it seems to me that every single entity above a certain size that is doing or has done business in Belize has managed to negotiate terms and conditions that leave Belize with little benefit from them being there. I would hope that should this exploration go ahead that Belize would get a better cut of the profits than it has negotiated for itself in the past."
"I have been saddened by the willingness of certain companies operating in Belize to maximize profits either to the detriment of the Belizean people or without adding to the quality of life of the people in whose country they operate. This, unfortunately, is in the nature of business. However, it is the business and purpose of the Belizean government to ensure that Belize also profits from these enterprises. This obligation appears to me to have been sadly neglected in the past and my fear is that it will not be met in the future."
"Nobody in Belize has the equipment or resources to tackle an oil spill. Neither does the government have the necessary finances to do this. Therefore it would necessarily fall to the company who makes the spill to clean it up. However, since the consequence of not doing a good job are likely to be far less than doing a good job - there would be little reason for the oil company to meet it's obligations. In the USA the consequence would be to stop that company from operating there anymore. This would be a huge loss to the company. In Belize they'd just laugh and wave out of the aircraft window as they head off.
In addition - this will not be a huge corporation with massive resources doing the drilling - or I very much doubt it. It is more likely to be a fairly small operation that has limited resources.
In the case of BP - it is big enough to be self insured. It can bear massive costs. In the case of Anadarko (who are 25% owners of the GOM well) although they are a large oil company, they are still not large enough to be self insured. Although this insurance was thought to be large enough for purpose - it's now clear that it will only pay for two months of the cleanup.
The lesson to be learned here is that whoever is doing the drilling must have a huge amount of insurance in order to pay for the cleanup.
And - they better have a plan, because you can bet your bottom dollar than nobody in the GOB has the slightest clue on how to tackle an oil spill."
"I, like you, believe that the best results for Belize will come from Tourism. It is my opinion that no enterprise should be allowed to operate in Belize that has a substantial risk of putting this valuable resource and revenue stream at jeopardy."
SMALL OIL COMES TO BELIZE
"If this was to happen to Belize, the prospect of 5,000 barrels per day of crude oil becoming available after a couple of months might well make the GOB declare national mourning for a day, and quickly change that for a month-long fiesta.
The pollution would get rid of seaside-monopolising tourists, regrettably kill any wildlife that remains after they have already destroyed the mangrove protection, but then allow the long-term natural recuperative process to kick in, and GOB to substitute a major stable revenue source for touristic whimsy."
Roaring Rocks 1 May 2010
"Personally I wouldn't use any dispersant at all like many countries around the world, but then I guess the whining from the USA would be deafening. I would rather see the beaches and wetlands coated in oil and let evaporation and bugs get rid of it. There is no question that you get more dead birds and reeds that way as well as some dead fish, but it all becomes compost or food within days anyway. Dispersants shift the problem out of sight but make the problems worse in the long term."
RigRat 31 May 2010
These two quotes are directly copied from a local message board (www.belizeforum.com) concerning Offshore Oil Exploration in Belize, the first was posted by RigRat on 31 May 2010 and the second by Roaring Rocks on 1 May 2010. RigRat is Jerry Larder, a Petroleum engineer with over 35 years of experience. He is the President and CEO of Welltech Group LLC which is an independent energy consultancy. The main focus of Welltech is to provide oil companies and governments with engineering expertise and is a permanent resident of Belize.
Roaring Rocks who is another oil industry professional lives both in the UK and near Belmopan but as of this date has refused to identify himself or his status in the country.
Mr. Jerry Larder states that Gulf spill is only the 40th largest spill in the world. He states "But the absolute root cause for this disaster was the government of the USA and the MMS for allowing a well with such a poor design to be drilled in the first place their slack supervision, and poor legislation."
While acknowledging that the GOB has to the best of his knowledge no viable emergency response plan and insufficient technical ability to inspect off shore drilling operations, Mr Larder did not respond when asked whether or not he would recommend proceeding with offshore drilling in Belize without these measures in place. He did say "most governments worldwide insist that oil companies have an emergency response plan. And they ensure it is in place before any drilling commences." Additionally he stated "...oil already surpasses Tourism as Belize's number one foreign currency earner. I also believe that oil and tourism can peacefully co-exist, and I firmly believe that Tourism does immeasurably more, and visible, damage to the environment. I would suggest that it would be an incredibly dimwitted thing to do to jeopardize oil exploration for the sake of tourism, Oil exploration doesn't generally rip out the mangroves, trample on the reefs, and the carbon footprint of their activities is minuscule compared to tourism."
However another oil industry professional with ties to Belize volunteered this "If I was to make a sweeping statement, I'd be inclined to urge Belize to get some outside help, since I do not believe there is the level of expertise necessary to properly oversee the proposed operation currently in the country.
Having said that, I would not expect the actual drilling operation to be anything but a routine job.
But - as we've seen - things can go wrong. My concern would be that there is almost no equipment available to tackle any kind of emergency, in the unlikely event that it is needed. Worse than that, since the amount of oil that I would expect to be found (if any) would be relatively small - it would not make financial sense for whoever would be responsible for cleaning up a spill (or whatever) to do so with any level of completeness.
Finally, it seems to me that every single entity above a certain size that is doing or has done business in Belize has managed to negotiate terms and conditions that leave Belize with little benefit from them being there. I would hope that should this exploration go ahead that Belize would get a better cut of the profits than it has negotiated for itself in the past."
"I have been saddened by the willingness of certain companies operating in Belize to maximize profits either to the detriment of the Belizean people or without adding to the quality of life of the people in whose country they operate. This, unfortunately, is in the nature of business. However, it is the business and purpose of the Belizean government to ensure that Belize also profits from these enterprises. This obligation appears to me to have been sadly neglected in the past and my fear is that it will not be met in the future."
"Nobody in Belize has the equipment or resources to tackle an oil spill. Neither does the government have the necessary finances to do this. Therefore it would necessarily fall to the company who makes the spill to clean it up. However, since the consequence of not doing a good job are likely to be far less than doing a good job - there would be little reason for the oil company to meet it's obligations. In the USA the consequence would be to stop that company from operating there anymore. This would be a huge loss to the company. In Belize they'd just laugh and wave out of the aircraft window as they head off.
In addition - this will not be a huge corporation with massive resources doing the drilling - or I very much doubt it. It is more likely to be a fairly small operation that has limited resources.
In the case of BP - it is big enough to be self insured. It can bear massive costs. In the case of Anadarko (who are 25% owners of the GOM well) although they are a large oil company, they are still not large enough to be self insured. Although this insurance was thought to be large enough for purpose - it's now clear that it will only pay for two months of the cleanup.
The lesson to be learned here is that whoever is doing the drilling must have a huge amount of insurance in order to pay for the cleanup.
And - they better have a plan, because you can bet your bottom dollar than nobody in the GOB has the slightest clue on how to tackle an oil spill."
"I, like you, believe that the best results for Belize will come from Tourism. It is my opinion that no enterprise should be allowed to operate in Belize that has a substantial risk of putting this valuable resource and revenue stream at jeopardy."