Posted on 06/10/2010 12:27:19 PM PDT by thackney
A Louisiana official said oil firms have begun pulling rigs out of the Gulf of Mexico since U.S. President Barack Obama declared a six-month halt to deepwater drilling after an accident prompted the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
“Already, three rigs have left or are in the process of leaving the Gulf of Mexico,” Chett Chiasson, executive director of the port commission for the town of Port Fourchon, which services 90 per cent of deepwater activity in the Gulf, told AFP.
“If this moratorium goes for six months, these rig operators and these oil companies will have no choice but to go somewhere else,” with a devastating impact on jobs and the economy of Louisiana and the rest of the United States, said Chiasson.
A spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which leased and operated the three rigs, said the company had “notified three of our rig contractors that we were terminating our contract because with a six-month moratorium on exploration and appraisal drilling in the Gulf, there’s no work for those rigs.”
But he was unable to confirm that the rigs, which belong to three separate companies, were being physically removed from the Gulf of Mexico.
Obama extended the moratorium on deepwater drilling to give a presidential commission time to investigate what caused the April accident on a BP-leased rig that claimed the lives of 11 workers and fouled the sea and sensitive coastal areas with tens of millions of gallons of oil.
Last week BP placed a containment device over the blown out well, located 80 kilometres off Louisiana, and said it is capturing almost 2.38 million litres of oil a day. But large amounts of oil are still pouring into the Gulf.
All 33 rigs that are affected by the moratorium are serviced out of Port Fourchon.
In a survey conducted by the port commission, companies in Port Fourchon said the drilling moratorium could force them to lay off 50 to 60 per cent of their staff, or more than 4,000 people, said Chiasson.
The moratorium comes on top of a severely curtailed fishing and shrimping season in Louisiana.
According to Chiasson, two-thirds of households in southern Louisiana work in the oil industry and the other third works in fishing.
The shutdown of the two key industries for most of this year would have “a cascading effect” on the region and would result in heavy job losses in Louisiana and around the United States, warned Chiasson.
6 month ban = stupid
more job losses
How am I gonna get to work 32 miles away on $8 dollar a gallon gas?
The most incompetent man to enter any room caused this. The messiah boy king.
How easy and quick is it to physically redeploy the deep water ships (as owned by Transocean)? Is there strong enough demand elsewhere to absorb the idle ships?
What makes you believe you’ll still have a job at that point?
Ban or no Ban..it is clear that if you want to drill in US deep water you will bet the company. Do you think that companies that have a majority of the opportunity outside the US are going to be willing to take the risk to get the business in the US?
Especially if the legal protection that they had is disposed of in the crunch by dictatorial politicians.
This will be like the tanker business in US waters. Those who venture in will be smaller stand alone vessel/companies who have little to loose but the individual rig.
http://rigzone.com/data/results.asp
There is very strong demand. The drilling in Offshore Brazil is very strong specifically.
Lol...I have to start dating the bosses daughter...
The economy that comes with $8 gas will effect a lot more than just your pain at the pump.
Yes - demand off West Africa and Brazil - only about 20 in the Gulf of Mexico are Deep Water
Global demand will pull them out - and it will be a long time for oil firms can get them back to the GoM
Barack “Barney Fife” Obama strikes again.
A good place to research rig names, owners, drilling status, etc. is at http://www.rigzone.com/data/advanced_search.asp
The clumsy dolt strikes again.
So does this mean if we have a car accident on any particular highway, we close that highway for 6 months?
STFU ZERO!
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