KEY FINDINGS

​

Public Costs of Private Messes

​

• Active Production: Whether it’s fugitive methane gas below surface or above, the gas can choke boat engines and helicopters alike making routine journeys in Louisiana’s waters dangerous to Louisiana workers.  While we all know that an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” owners of platforms and structures in Louisiana waters have taken a more hands off approach. Crumbling floor grating, teetering cranes, and deferred maintenance make already dangerous oil and gas jobs more perilous.

• Navigation: In 2018, a crew boat collided with an unmarked wellhead in state waters. In 2020, a barge crashed into a submerged, unmarked orphaned well causing an oil spill in the Barataria Bay. The well spewed a 100-foot-high geyser of natural gas and light crude oil for weeks.  Louisiana mariners are flying blind while deadbeat well and platform owners fail to maintain legally required lighting requirements. 

• Mudslides and Collapsing Platforms: In 2004, Hurricane Ivan caused underwater landslides that capsized the Taylor Energy Platform MC20 and moved the fixed, eight-pile structure over 560 feet from its original anchorage. The rig was buried in 150 feet of mud and its 28 leaking well heads were buried 475 feet beneath the seafloor’s surface. The wells leaked for 18 years and cost $432 million to stop the spill. There are 28 platforms within Louisiana’s Birdfoot Delta in the so-called “mud-lobe zone” where there is a risk of mudslide and immediate collapse of structures

• The more they rot, the more they cost:  The longer an unused facility remains and a well is unplugged, the more likely the company will skip out on the tab and orphan said liabilities onto the Louisiana taxpayer. Half of Louisiana’s total offshore wells are over 50 years old. And to add insult to injury, the longer these facilities sit on our coast, the cost to deal with the mess increases. Storm damaged or age toppled structures require difficult and time-consuming salvage work.  Decommissioning a storm-damaged structure may cost 15 times or more the cost of decommissioning an undamaged structure.

​

​

Public Benefits of Removal 

​

• Industrial Reuse: The United States is highly reliant upon recycled steel and one of the largest global importers of steel, with imports making up a quarter of all steel. Offshore facilities are  made from high-strength low-alloy structural steels, and have even higher per ton scrap values. The American steel recycling industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and Louisiana companies are already part of this supply chain. There is an industrial second act just waiting on the seafloor. 

• Rebuild the Boot: Oil and gas facilities that are no longer in use are in the way of coastal restoration projects and access to sand resources. In 2020, Louisiana’s CPRA spent more than $20 million attempting to restore and save East Timbalier Island which protected more than 700-plus oil wells in Terrebonne and Timbalier bays from waves and storms. The state agency’s attempts were foiled by a nest of pipelines and oil and gas wells.  Imagine instead that the East Timbalier project began with removing the “dead iron” first or a more inland project begins with removal of iron, plugging of wells, and the backfilling of navigation canals, then the coastal restoration project can proceed with a better guarantee of success. Louisiana also needs land, more specifically, it needs high quality sediment for beach and dune barrier habitat projects. But rusting platforms, unplugged wells, and pipelines are in the way and add to the costs of these projects. 

• Shipbuilding: There is a great deal of public debate appropriately centered upon the decline of American shipbuilding. Shipbuilding requires a civilian function to stay relevant and technologically competitive. These same firms and workforces are the very ones that installed and powered Louisiana’s and Federal OCS offshore oil fields. But between the decline in production and the rise of advanced drilling technology, utilization of this fleet has plummeted in the last decade. Vessels are dry docked in Larose and crews are finding work elsewhere and outside of the industry. But there’s work on Louisiana’s coast right now. The job isn’t finished, and Louisiana’s leaders have an opportunity and obligation to see that it’s done.

• Jobs: It took decades and thousands of workers to install this iron, and it will require nothing less for its removal.  Common elements for decommissioning of offshore platforms include: engineering and planning, inspections and permits, well P&A, platform preparation, pipeline and subsea umbilical removal, conductor removal, topsides removal and transportation to shore disposal and recycling, substructure removal and disposal, and site clearance and remediation. It will require thousands of job years to plug Louisiana’s offshore wells and remove supporting infrastructure. ​​