• Sign up for the Daily Digest E-mail

BOE Report

  • Home
  • Headlines
    • Canada
    • USA
    • Columns
    • Discussions
  • Plays
    • Cardium Sandstone
    • Duvernay Shale
    • Montney Shale
    • Shaunavon
    • Viking Sandstone
    • Williston Basin
  • Well Activity Map
  • Property Listings
  • Land Sales
  • M&A Database
  • Markets
    • Canada Market Quotes
    • USA Market Quotes
    • Canada Well Licences
    • Canada Rig Count
    • USA Rig Count
    • USA Market Data
  • Advocacy
  • Data
  • Jobs

US agrees to environmental review of offshore oil fracking

January 29, 20166:33 PM The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The federal government has agreed to stop approving oil fracking off the California coast until it studies whether the practice is safe for the environment, according to legal settlements filed Friday.

Separate deals reached with a pair of environmental organizations require the Department of Interior to review whether well techniques such as using acid or hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, to stimulate offshore well production threatens water quality and marine life.

The practices have been conducted for years in federal waters and were revealed when the Environmental Defense Center filed Freedom of Information Act requests, the organization said.

“These practices are currently being conducted under decades-old plans with out-of-date or nonexistent environmental analysis,” said Brian Segee, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Center.

The agreements in Los Angeles federal court apply to operations off Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. operate platforms.

Federal agencies will have to complete the review by the end of May and determine if a more in-depth analysis is necessary. They will also have to make future permit applications publicly accessible.

A Department of Interior spokeswoman said the agency would comply with the agreement and is committed to safe offshore operations.

The American Petroleum Institute, which intervened in the cases as a defendant and did not agree to the settlement, issued a statement saying it did not think the environmental review was needed and did not think a permit moratorium was justified.

The Environmental Defense Center challenged 53 permits authorizing well stimulation at six offshore platforms. The group said use of chemicals such as acid to break up and dissolve rock poses risks at every stage of operation up through and including their discharge in the ocean.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a separate lawsuit, said the government had rubber stamped permits without public input or analysis of the threat posed to creatures such as sea otters, fish and whales.

“Offshore fracking is a dirty and dangerous practice that has absolutely no place in our ocean,” said attorney Kristen Monsell. “The federal government certainly has no right to give the oil industry free rein to frack offshore at will.”

The settlement only applies to operations off the California coast but could have an impact on oversight of other offshore fracking in places such as the Gulf of Mexico, Monsell said.

Hydraulic Fracturing

Follow the BOE Report
  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • twitter
Sign up for the BOE Report Daily Digest E-mail
Latest Headlines
  • Crescent Point Appoints John Dielwart to Board of Directors
  • Pulse Oil Corp. Announces Bigoray Drilling Program and EOR Progress
  • Oil hovers below 2019 highs on OPEC cuts, trade talks in focus
  • Terry Etam book launch – redefining energy conversations, with your help
  • Katalyst Data Management Opens Subsurface Datacenter in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Return to home page
OSY Rentals

About
  • About BOEReport.com
  • In the News
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
Resources
  • App
  • Widgets
  • Desktop
  • Daily Digest E-mail
Get In Touch
  • Advertise
  • Post an Announcement
  • Post a Job
  • Contribute
  • Contact
Featured In
  • CamTrader
  • Rigger Talk
BOE Network
Copyright © 2019 Grobes Media Inc.