Analysis: Oil companies more cautious on storms after Gulf spill

July 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Heightened caution following the BP oil spill is prompting oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico to shut more production faster as storms threaten, exacerbating energy price volatility this hurricane season.

Comparing producers’ precautions ahead of storms this year with preparations for more severe storms in previous years indicates that companies are taking tropical threats more seriously, even though predictions of a harsh hurricane season have yet to be borne out.

“Companies operating in the Gulf are much more risk-averse than they have been historically,” Hussein Allidina, Morgan Stanley’s head of Commodity Research in New York, told Reuters.

While interruptions have been temporary, the volumes of production cut have been high and can have a big impact on energy prices. Gulf production accounts for a third of U.S. oil output and more than 10 percent of U.S. natural gas output.

Interruptions from Tropical Storm Bonnie last week helped push oil to 11-week highs near $80 a barrel.

Bonnie cut nearly 52 percent of total Gulf production at its peak, even though it had weakened from a tropical storm to a tropical depression by the time it entered the Gulf and never restrengthened as forecast.

Last year, Hurricane Ida threatened the same area with 100 mph (160 kmh) winds and the maximum oil production shut was 43 percent as a result of that storm.

Total output lost to Bonnie was 2.7 million barrels of oil and more than 4.6 Bcf of gas through Tuesday. By comparison, Ida in 2009 – crossing the same key Gulf production area – cost the market 1.4 million barrels of oil and 4.6 Bcf of gas.

“It appears companies drilling for oil in the U.S. Gulf are taking additional precautionary steps ahead of approaching storms, resulting in sizable supply disruptions,” J.P. Morgan said in a research note.

Both the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said that regulations on drilling have tightened because of the spill, but the government has made no changes in storm-preparation requirements because of it.

The U.S. government has, however, expressed concern about the availability of containment equipment to contain any new spill as most of it is currently deployed to contain the BP spill.

WORKING FARTHER OFFSHORE IN DEEPER WATER A FACTOR?

Operating farther offshore in deeper water than in the past also could contribute to increased caution and raise shut-in oil and gas totals, experts said.

Companies contacted by Reuters said only that they always prepare carefully for storms in the Gulf. They already had tightened up tropical weather preparedness at government direction after disastrous storms Katrina and Rita in 2005.

The spill began April 20 when a BP Plc well blew out, killing 11 workers, sinking a drilling rig and spewing millions of gallons of crude.

BP on Tuesday said it was taking a $32 billion charge against earnings to cover anticipated costs for stopping the leak and Gulf clean up.

“It is not surprising that companies should wish to go the extra mile in the wake of Deepwater Horizon,” said Antoine Halff of NewEdge Group in New York. “BP itself cannot afford another disaster. The others are keen to distance themselves from BP’s troubles.”

EXTRA CAUTION EXHIBITED EARLY IN SEASON

A similarly cautious approach could be seen with Hurricane Alex, which earlier this month took a more southerly route across the Gulf than Bonnie.

At peak, Alex triggered evacuation of 11.7 percent of manned production platforms and 15.7 percent of drilling rigs. Production lost totaled 1.4 million barrels of oil and 3.2 bcf of gas.

By contrast, Dolly, a July 2008 hurricane, which took a similar southerly path, caused 8.6 percent of manned platforms and 6.5 percent of drilling rigs to evacuate and kept 136,790 barrels of oil and 1.4 Bcf of gas off the market.

Although this season has started slowly despite forecasts of a severe hurricane year, activity typically picks up in August and September and the season does not end until November 30. One weak hurricane and one tropical depression in July could be just the beginning for the Gulf oil patch this year.

The table below compares evacuations and shut-ins from a sample of past storms.

Storm Strength Year Platforms Rigs Oil lost Gas lost

(/total) (/working) (bbls) (MMcf)

Alex Cat 2 2010 74/634 8/51 1,382,654 3,223

Bonnie TS/TD 2010 106/634 15/39 2,696,009 4,618

Ida Cat 2 2009 158/694 10/66 1,374,850 4,600

Dolly Cat 2 2008 62/717 8/123 136,790 1,421

Emily Cat 5 2005 88/819 24/137 240,024 1,583

(Additional reporting by Joshua Schneyer and Jeanine Prezioso in New York; Editing by Alden Bentley)

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Floods destroy Keith Urban’s musical equipment

May 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Floods destroy Keith Urban’s musical equipment

London, May 7 (ANI): A flood that hit Nashville, Tennessee seems to have destroyed Keith Urban’s guitars and other equipment, and his gear that he kept in the storage facility.

The country singer, who was about to begin work on a new album, was forced to stop after severe storms caused flooding across the city.

“I wish we could talk to each other under better circumstances. I am actually in the studio recording. We were supposed to start yesterday, but we could not get all the trucks in to get all my equipment out of this big storage facility.

“We thought we would leave it a day and hoped the waters would subside, but instead they continued to go up and up.

“At this stage it is possible that I have lost all my equipment, all my road equipment, and all of my guitars and amps, everything. We have to wait and see to what extent the waters came up… but we know it is not good,” The Daily Express quoted the Sweet Thing hitmaker as speaking with CNN anchor Rick Sanchez.

The star is however grateful that he and wife Nicole Kidman survived the disaster that is estimated to have killed 29 people so far.

He adds, “This pales in comparison, people have lost everything… We are certainly financially helping, my wife and I are.”

Other stars Toby Keith and Brad Paisley have also had their equipment damaged by water. (ANI)

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NASA scientist makes first full assessment of Africa’s mangrove forests

August 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, August 21 (ANI): A NASA scientist has made what is believed to be the first full assessment of the African continent’s mangrove forests.

Environmental scientist Lola Fatoyinbo of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) developed and employed a method that can be used across the continent, overcoming expensive, ad hoc, and inconsistent modes of ground-based measurement.

“We’ve lost more than 50 percent of the world’s mangrove forests in a little over half a century; a third of them have disappeared in the last 20 years alone,” said Fatoyinbo, whose earlier study of Mozambique’s coastal forests laid the groundwork for the continent-wide study.

“Hopefully, this technique will offer scientists and officials a method of estimating change in this special type of forest,” she added.

Mangroves are the most common ecosystem in coastal areas of the tropics and sub-tropics.

The swampy forests are essential, especially in densely-populated developing countries, for rice farming, fishing and aquaculture (freshwater and saltwater farming), timber, and firewood.

Some governments also increasingly depend on them for eco-tourism.

The large, dense root systems are a natural obstacle that helps protect shorelines against debris and erosion.

Mangroves are often the first line of defense against severe storms, tempering the impact of strong winds and floods.

These coastal woodlands also have a direct link to climate, sequestering carbon from the atmosphere at a rate of about 100 pounds per acre per day, which is comparable to the per acre intake by tropical rainforests (though rainforests cover more of Earth’s surface).

“To my knowledge, this study is the first complete mapping of Africa’s mangroves, a comprehensive, historic baseline enabling us to truly begin monitoring the welfare of these forests,” said Assaf Anyamba, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County expert on vegetation mapping, based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Fatoyinbo’s research combines multiple satellite observations of tree height and land cover, mathematical formulas, and “ground-truthing” data from the field to measure the full expanse and makeup of the coastal forests.

Her measurements yielded three new kinds of maps of mangroves: continental maps of how much land the mangroves cover; a three-dimensional map of the height of forest canopies across the continent; and biomass maps that allow researchers to assess how much carbon the forests store.

“Beyond density or geographical size of the forests, the measurements get to the heart of the structure, or type, of mangroves,” explained Fatoyinbo. (ANI)

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New system to help aircraft avoid ocean storms and turbulence

July 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, July 8 (ANI): In a new research, NASA is funding the development of a prototype system to provide aircraft with updates about severe storms and turbulence as they fly across remote ocean regions.

The system is being developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, in partnership with colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, US.

It combines satellite data and computer weather models with cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques.

The goal is to identify and predict rapidly evolving storms and other potential areas of turbulence.

“Turbulence is the leading cause of injuries in commercial aviation,” said John Haynes, program manager in the Earth Science Division’s Applied Sciences Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

“This new work to detect the likelihood of turbulence associated with oceanic storms using key space-based indicators is of crucial importance to pilots,” he added.

The system is designed to help guide pilots away from intense weather.

A variety of NASA spacecraft observations are being used in the project, including data from NASA’s Terra, Aqua, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, CloudSat and CALIPSO satellites.

The prototype system will identify areas of turbulence in clear regions of the atmosphere as well as within storms.

It is on track for testing next year.

Pilots on selected transoceanic routes will receive real-time turbulence updates and provide feedback.

When the system is finalized, it will provide pilots and ground-based controllers with text-based maps and graphical displays showing regions of likely turbulence and storms.

“Pilots currently have little weather information as they fly over remote stretches of the ocean, which is where some of the worst turbulence occurs,” said scientist John Williams, one of the project leads at NCAR.

“Providing pilots with at least an approximate picture of developing storms could help guide them safely around areas of potentially severe turbulence,” he added.

According to NCAR scientist Cathy Kessinger, a project team member, “Our goal is to give pilots a regularly updated picture of the likely storms ahead as they fly over the ocean, so they can take action to minimize turbulence and keep their aircraft out of danger.”(ANI)

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Now, you can hear global warming

May 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 22 (ANI): A new study has determined that it’s now possible to hear the rise of global warming, in the form of more larger and more intense storms, which are signs of climate change.

For decades, seismologists have been filtering out the sounds of massive, storm-driven ocean waves crashing into coastlines. The pesky noise was getting in the way of earthquake detection.

According to a report in National Geographic News, but now, some experts are electronically filtering out the quakes, and turning up the volume on the storm waves.

The noise of waves crashing ashore creates very specific vibrations, according to study leader Peter Bromirski of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Those vibrations indicate how severe storms at sea actually are.

Bromirski and others are still studying seismological data on storms from the 1930s to the present and are waiting to release the full analysis to the public.

“But a trend is already obvious,” he said. “There is a definite increase in severe storm events over the years that we are noticing at the recording stations,” he added.

The world stage is very well set for full-scale eavesdropping on open-ocean storm waves.

Seismic recording stations have been monitoring the vibrations of the Earth worldwide since the 1930s in roughly the same way.

That consistency may be reassuring to scientists.

For example, weather-satellite data have been used to identify evidence of a trend of intensifying storms, but some scientists say satellite tech, having changed so much over the decades, is problematic for tracking storms in the long term.

“The nice thing about these (quake) recording stations is that they are such stable devices that so consistently measure the vibrations produced by storm activity,” Bromirski said. (ANI)

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Large sponges may be reattached to coral reefs using new technique

May 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 28 (ANI): A new study has described a novel technique for reattaching large sponges that have been dislodged from coral reefs.

According to the study in Restoration Ecology, the findings could be generally applied to the restoration of other large sponge species removed by human activities or storm events.

As part of the study, 20 specimens of the Caribbean giant barrel sponge were removed and reattached at Conch Reef off of Key Largo, Florida in 2004 and 2005 at depths of 15m and 30m.

The sponges were affixed to the reef using sponge holders consisting of polyvinyl chloride piping, which was anchored in a concrete block that was set on a plastic mesh base.

Though the test area endured four hurricanes during the study period, 62.5 percent of sponges survived at least 2.3-3 years and 90 percent of the sponges attached in deep water locations survived.

The sponges reattached to the reef after being held stationary by sponge holders for as little as 6 months.

Large sponges may be damaged by a variety of natural events and human activities including severe storms, vessel groundings and the cutting movements of chain or rope moved along with debris by strong currents.

After these events, detached large sponges are commonly found, still alive and intact, between reef spurs on sand or rubble where they slowly erode under the action of oscillating currents.

“The worldwide decline of coral reef ecosystems has prompted many local restoration efforts, which typically focus on reattachment of reef-building corals,” said Professor Joseph Pawlik of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, co-author of the study.

“Despite their dominance on coral reefs, large sponges are generally excluded from restoration efforts because of a lack of suitable methods for sponge reattachment,” he added.

These sponges, which often exceed reef-building corals in abundance, can be more than 1m in diameter and may be hundreds or thousands of years old.

The success of past attempts at reattaching sponges, which used cement or epoxy, has been limited because adhesives do not bind to sponge tissue.

When damaged or dislodged, large sponges usually die because they are unable to reattach to the reef.

The results of the study show that these sponges have the ability to reattach to the reef if they can be properly secured. (ANI)

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Tornados, wildfires leave eight dead in US

April 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 11 (DPA) A wave of violent spring weather across the US left at least eight people dead and dozens more injured, after severe storms spawned tornadoes in the south and wildfires burned in the southcentral states of Oklahoma and Texas.

A mother and her infant daughter were killed when a tornado touched down in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Friday afternoon, the Daily News Journal reported.

Tornado warnings were also issued across the southern states of Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina late Friday, the National Weather Service said. Severe weather from the same system also generated tornadoes in Kentucky and could continue to move north, the Weather Channel reported.

An earlier tornado killed three people in Arkansas overnight.

Separately, wildfires left a trail of ash with 200 homes destroyed in Oklahoma and Texas and three confirmed deaths, media reports said.

At least one of the fires in a suburban area near Oklahoma city was suspected to have been purposefully set, officials told the Oklahoman newspaper.

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