A Vast Spiderweb of Pipelines

Having tired a bit of the news lately, I've been looking at more industry sites. My newest find is OilOnline. "Your on-line source for the oil industry."

I don't know -- I guess I'd heard of off shore drilling plenty -- just never really thought about what this would mean.

"Strip away the water and sands from the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf, and you’ll find a vast spider’s web of pipelines – some 28,000 miles of pipe crisscrossing the Gulf from Texas to Alabama. Although deepwater pipelines currently account for a small fraction of the total, that’s where the industry’s focus has been for the past decade."


Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

In college, two of my best friends and I went camping on Corpus Christi. We camped right on the beach and listened to the waves and the sand. It's one of my favorite places in the world, I think -- though it was a very rough camping night. It was so windy we thought we were going to blow away until someone had he life-saving idea of putting the spare tire from the rental car in the tent. I remember warm Lone Star beer being part of the scenario too... That was 18 years ago, I guess. I went back on my camping trip with my dog a few years later. There was a seafood joint called Snoopy's there. I'm always a sucker for Snoopy. I wonder if it looks different now. If our tent would be sandwiched now between the rattlesnakes and an enormous oil rig.

In 2006 the National Geographic reported on "the successful discovery of oil at a staggering depth beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico."

"The well delves through 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) of seawater and more than 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) of seafloor to strike oil in the lower tertiary formation—a layer of rock laid down between 65 million and 24 million years ago."

I've been looking for about 20 minutes now and I can't seem to find any reports on the environmental effects of the drilling. The National Geographic doesn't mention it -- and I can't seem to find anyone else mentioning it either. This seems strange to me.

I did find a site called the Gulf Of Mexico Foundation -- that says it's purpose is to promote conservation in the Gulf of Mexico. See now, don't try this at home. It looked like a lovely site from the start -- with pictures of coral and clams and things. But when you look at the partners there are lots of big oil dollars attached -- and while the site reports on problems in the Gulf with fish and coral, it doesn't mention oil at all and offers up many negative stories about drug companies, wind farms, biofuels and why coastal residencies.

The ocean is being mined. I'm remembering again my friend Michael, the oilman and deep sea diver warning that we are killing the oceans. That we could reenter a time when the oceans cannot sustain life at all...

Vast spiderwebs of subterranean pipelines abound.


photo by Richard Ling
link

A Piece of Paper

This morning I'm looking at a story in the International Herald Tribune about a Texas oilman suing a Russian state owned gas company for breech of contract -- they are hoping to have the case heard in a German court.

It's a breech of contract suit -- what it looks like is that the guy from Texas said he would partner with the Russians back in the early days after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was a risky time to do business there, and the American obtained financing, in effect backing the government and the exploration and distribution of what is thought to be the largest natural gas field in the world.

What I don't see is any investment actually made on the part of the American -- not any major investment, anyway -- I'm sure it all cost a lot of money -- there were flights to Moscow and lots of expensive vodka, no doubt. But nothing to really support his claim to 40% of a 12 billion dollar location.

A piece of paper.

I've been sort of interested -- looking at the news for these months -- in just this sort of thing. All over the world much of the oil and gas is controlled by state owned operations. And they often partner with foreign investors. Venezuela, The Middle East, China -- all of these countries hold hold stakes, benefit and look out for their citizens (to varying degrees of success) in relation to their profits and holdings. I thought about the alternative here in the States -- well, one side is that foreign investors are free to come in and begin to obtain controlling interests in many delicate endeavors here -- we saw this last fall when:

Yesterday, Wednesday, Nov. 28, The Abu Dhabi Investment Corp. firmed plans to spend $7.5 billion and become the largest single share holder in Citigroup. I wrote about it then.

Another is that it might be argued that the oil companies run Washington, and it might be better the other way around -- the guy who's suing, his name personally came up in a meeting between Bush and Putin. I for one don't want to think that the Russian government is going to put a promise to any Texas oilman ahead of what is right for the people of Russia -- I've been fairly mortified to learn of the oilman impingement on American interests myself...

I don't know -- it just brings up all kinds of questions for me. Of course, foreign investment and aid are crucial when things are falling apart -- they are also big bargains -- can one who makes an agreement under duress really ever be expected to maintain that oath a decade later?

Really, when should a contract be binding?
Who should it be binding to?
What should we be allowed to take advantage of?
Is some global court of law really what we want in this world?
Wouldn't that likely get the US sued for all sorts of things?

But you promised.

I lied.

You can't lie.

So sue me.

I needed a loaf of bread to feed my starving family.
I needed to get through the day the year the decade.
I needed to get back on my feet.

But I was there for you --
You said you needed me --
You said we were in it together --

I thought you were the love of my life...

Thanks anyway.

"This is about bringing out the facts about our claim," Moncrief ((said oilman)) said during an interview. "We do not view our agreement with Gazprom as a memorandum of understanding. We view it as a binding contract."

Not Just Alaska.

So, it's not just Alaska...

By AP

Published: January 8, 2008

Environmental groups sued the Shell Oil Company and several of its affiliates, claiming that the oil giant has for years released pollutants from its suburban Houston refinery that are well above state and federal limits. In the federal lawsuit, the Sierra Club and Environment Texas claim that the excess air pollutants, including the toxic chemicals benzene and 1,3-butadiene, are a violation of the federal Clean Air Act.

Two things occur to me:
the first is that the toxins released by our proximity to and reliance on fossil fuel no doubt exceed anything we can imagine or can currently measure.
the second is that we are very hung up on blame in this country, and that without some other means of understanding it is impossible to imagine human progress.

Two more things occur to me:
this is the same as in everything we do -- talk, travel, buy, desire, raise our children, kiss.
unless we can change somehow, without blaming other people, there is no hope for new growth, for progress, for breathing freely.

Another poet friend is very interested in the idea of what is new, and often writes about it and posts quotes about it on his blog -- as in, can we invent, can there be anything new --

Ring In The New

"... one might imagine the good New growing naturally out of the good Old, without the need for polemic or theory..." - T.S.Eliot

The conversation revolves aroung poetics, but why not oil -- maybe the question is the same of politics or science or industry...

Ted Hughes, writing from Boston in 1959, on American poets:

"... you have to take into account the way their whole life is condensed on the superficialities of the moment. Relation to a changing past ... they are without, and get no pleasure from contemplating it." And, "[autobiography] is the only subject matter really left to Americans. The only thing an American really has to himself, & really belongs to, is his family. Never a locality, or a community, or an organisation of ideas, or a private imagination"

Maybe it would be refreshing to imagine this all an American dilemma -- that the only reason I see it all as human nature is because I am an American. Maybe then the rest of the world could save us... humans elsewhere... who own their own breath...