Chevron green lights Orphan Basin drilling
Tour de force of Bad Timing and Shelf-Promotion
Undaunted by the world’s largest environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and BP’s failure to contain the expanding slick, Chevron Canada Ltd. will today forge ahead with offshore oil drilling on Canada’s deepest offshore well in the ominously named Orphan Basin, about 270 miles northeast of the coast of Newfoundland.
With an air of overconfidence not seen seen the RMS Titanic weighed anchor for its maiden voyage a century ago, David MacInnis, Chevron Canada’s vice-president of public affairs and public policy blithely told the CBC yesterday that it was all systems go on Canada’s answer to the Deepwater Horizon project:
“We did a complete review top to bottom — the systems, the equipment, the processes, the people and the skills that were in place. We didn’t need to make any changes, but it’s something that on an ongoing basis we’ll review and monitor.”
Chevron will start drilling today at the Lona O-55 prospect in depths of up to 1.5 miles. In the same teststosterone-driven climate that spurred BP and its Transocean platform subcontractors in the Gulf of Mexico, Chevron Canada’s website boasts that “the water depth, at 2,600 metres, will set a new record for offshore wells drilled in Canada.”
The drilling will be carried out the Stena Carron drillship, described as “a harsh-environment, dynamic-positioning, deepwater drillship capable of drilling in water depths up to 3050 metres.” The initial exploration well, the website states, “will take several months to drill and evaluate.”
Chevron Canada’s partners, romantically described as “co-venturers,” are ExxonMobil Canada Ltd., Imperial Oil Resources Ventures Limited and Shell Canada Energy.
According to Chevron Canada’s MacInnes: “Using the Stena Carron, which was specially designed for this environment, we know we’ve got the right equipment”, adding that “there will also be plenty of supervision on board…We have five folks on board whose only job is to provide 24-hour, seven-day-a-week technical oversight to the personnel on board, both Chevron employees and contractor employees.”
If all this smacks of corporate arrogance in the face of the Deepwater Horizon blowout on April 20, 2010, and the recent revelations that BP too had “folks on board” its offshore platform at the time of that blowout–BP executives who were reportedly celebrating the company’s “safety record” at the fateful moment–welcome to the world of Big Oil.
While the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster continues to dominate world media attention, the reflexive response of the offshore oil stakeholders appears to be self-preservation and denial.
Not surprisingly then, Chevron Canada’s MacInnes reportedly assured CBC News that “in the event of a blowout, Chevron has two drill ships under contract that could drill relief wells in the Orphan Basin.”
Hunger the great serpent…
As part of its considerable efforts to stave off criticism of the industry’s safety and environmental record, Chevron’s Canadian branch has followed its bigger counterparts in touting its commitment to all things green. A visit to the Chevron Canada website reveals much ado about the company’s participation in the SERPENT Project.
According to that hyperlinked cyberpropaganda, the “Scientific and Environmental ROV Partnership using Existing iNdustrial Technology” (SERPENT) project aims to make cutting-edge industrial ROV technology and data more accessible to the world’s science community, share knowledge and progress deep-sea research.”
Highlighting interaction with”science and conservation groups globally to communicate the project to the public, increasing the awareness of our fragile marine resources.” Like its other Big Oil partners, Chevron has devoted most of its media self-promotion to green-themed programs like SERPENT and by ingratiating itself with the scientific and academic communities in its branch locales, establishing liasons and research support at Memorial University.
The slick public relations project yields a green-friendly image of university and scientific researchers comingling with oil industry flacks at the bottom of the ocean as neon-coloured deep sea creatures swim past and are captured on fancy imaging equipment for ecological posterity and the wellbeing of the planet.
Operating according to its “golden rules” of safety, the SERPENT project is effective at distracting media attention from the dirtier reason why the offshore platforms are there in the first place. For example, the use of robot-operated vehicles (ROVs) is highlighted as the transport system for carrying awestruck researchers to the ocean floor, not the machines seen last month attempting in vain to kick-start the failed “shut-off” mechanism on the Deepwater Horizon.
Considering that the SERPENT program’s founding partners are none other than BP and Transocean, the folks who brought us the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the PR imperative underlying the SERPENT campaign it is no happy coincidence.
On the Transocean website, after the rig company’s founding role in SERPENT is noted proudly alongside links to the SERPENT missions run on the Deepwater Horizon there is scant reference to the oil drilling side of the equation. A terse press statement notes with considerable circumspection that:
“During the night of April 20, 2010, the Transocean rig Deepwater Horizon underwent a catastrophic accident that resulted in an explosion and fire that left 11 crew members missing and others severely injured. Deepwater Horizon, working under contract to BP Exploration and Production, is one of the Gulf SERPENT partner sites. Since 2006, the Oceaneering E-MAG ROV on the Horizon has collected countless hours of stunning images of marine life from the depths of the Gulf. We are gratified to learn that the ROV Team headed by Darren Costello are safe and uninjured. Our thoughts are with the families of the missing and we look forward to news of their safe rescue.”
Chevron Canada continues to work overtime to conflate offshore oil drilling with environmentally friendly undertakings such as SERPENT. The company’s website notes that “To date, SERPENT has been working with Chevron Canada Limited in the deep-water off Newfoundland and hopes to continue this research in the future…the Canada region includes relatively unexplored deep-sea locations, both from an ecological and an oil and gas perspective. Data obtained from this region will help to identify the organisms that live in this remote deepwater area, assess the operational impact on sediment communities as well as potentially enable examinations on rate of recovery, recolonization and succession.”
According to Chevron Canada, current and future drilling in the Orphan Basin…”in 2,350m water depth by Chevron Canada Limited, on behalf of co-venturers ExxonMobil Canada Ltd., Imperial Oil Resources Ventures Ltd. and Shell Canada Ltd…offers scientists from SERPENT, Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans a unique opportunity to utilise a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to characterize the local biological communities and improve understanding of how these ecosystems function.”
By ingratiating itself with local communities, schools, and municipal, provincial and federal governments, Chevron Canada’s strategy has been to equate offshore oil drilling with scientific progress and environmental responsibility.
Such singlemindedness, if not tunnel-vision, even in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon blowout suggests that Big Oil executives are drinking their own PR Kool-Aid and hoping that the Canadian public and its legislators will do likewise.
Tags: BP oil spill, Canadian energy, Chevron, Deepwater Horizon disaster, environmental regulation
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