Did anyone outside the offshore oil and gas producing industry notice what didn't happen during Hurricane Andrew?
The producing region of the Gulf of Mexico last month sustained a natural disaster of stunning severity, and the environmental consequences were negligible. There was widespread damage. But there was no mammoth fire, no shroud of smoke, no huge oil spill. Once again, prophecies of environmental doom regarding offshore drilling and production look greatly exaggerated.
MONSTER STORM
Hurricane Andrew was a monster. The late-August storm clobbered land in three places, killed people, demolished homes, disrupted lives and businesses. To discuss what it did not do is not to ignore what it did. To be sure, the industry isn't ignoring the pain. Oil and gas producers, pipelines, and service firms have promised hurricane relief cash contributions approaching $3 million. They have helped organize donation drives of food and clothing, made vehicles and other equipment available to relief projects, and provided workers to help with reconstruction in hard-hit areas.
All aspects of the storm-the tragedy, the recovery, the help from outsiders, the countless episodes of human heroism, charity, and resilience-deserve attention. Amid all that very real drama, the devastating oil spill that did not happen doesn't seem like much of a story. But it is-especially as Congress fashions omnibus energy legislation that treats offshore oil and gas operations like pending calamity.
Most of nature's destructive acts seem worse while in progress than they do in retrospect. Not Andrew. Damage assessments worsened with time. Maximum wind speed still isn't clear; in some areas the storm wrecked measuring equipment.
In the gulf, Andrew damaged at least 241 oil and gas platforms and other structures and 135 pipelines. Many of the damaged platforms were toppled. The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates 2,000 of the Gulf of Mexico's 3,852 oil and gas platforms sustained hurricane force winds. More damage will become evident as operators complete underwater inspections.
Yet there was no cataclysmic spill. The industry had time to evacuate its workers from offshore facilities and to secure equipment to the extent possible. It had response teams ready to return to the damage area as soon as the storm ended. Thanks to modern remote sensing technology, the teams knew where leaks occurred and spills threatened. And thanks to modern operating practices the teams knew what to do.
Hurricane Andrew gave the U.S. offshore producing industry a roaring test of its ability to manage environmental risk. And to repeat, there was no consequential oil spill, no huge fire, no natural upset of human origin anywhere near what nature did to itself.
Did anyone notice?
HOSTILE TO DEVELOPMENT
On Capitol Hill last week, House and Senate conferees tried to complete energy legislation that would confine oil and gas offshore operations to the central and western gulf and refuse to lease the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain. They thus were set to pass energy legislation hostile to development of a natural endowment of fuels that satisfy more than 60% of the country's energy needs. Making use of the oil and gas resource has come to be seen by many Americans and lawmakers as a serious environmental threat, especially when it occurs offshore.
If the environmental threat were real Hurricane Andrew would have shown it to be so. It did not. Industry has new reason to ask: What are these people so afraid of?
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
