Category Archives: Oil and Gas Politics

Oil rigs moored in Cromarty Firth. Invergordon, Scotland, UK -- Berardo62/flickr.com

UK Women Speak Out About Their Role in the Oil and Gas Industry

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It’s easy to see the fledgling UK oil and gas industry as a microcosm for the issues we have in the United States. In some cases, the problems facing the UK’s energy sector are more pronounced than those at home. Take, for instance, the seemingly unending number of difficulties facing fracking company Cuadrilla as they launched their first fracking well in Lancashire. The fracker saw years of protests and litigation before they were able to begin work in earnest.

Fortunately for the United Kingdom, the march of progress would not be slowed, and the oil and gas industry in the United Kingdom is finally beginning to chug along. Cuadrilla discovered “a rich reservoir of high quality and recoverable gas.” Geologists have also found fresh reserves in the UK’s North Sea, as well. 

Progress is slow, but it’s happening.

Growing Pains in the Workforce

Now, however, the UK oil and gas industry is faced with another dilemma that echoes problems encountered in the United States: they need to draft more women. At the moment, only one out of four employees in the oil and gas industry are female. That runs about equal to the US, where 25.5% of the industry are women.

While the old days of seeing women as something of an oddity in the industry are long gone, that antiquated stigma — that oil and gas is exclusively a man’s world — still hangs around the industry’s neck.

Now, however, a new book from Katy Heidenreich titled The Oil Industry’s Best Kept Secret: A book full of inspiration and advice hopes to reverse the idea that women don’t belong in the United Kingdom’s oil and gas industry.

Diversity, Progress, and Adventure

One of Heidenreich’s case studies for her book, a petroleum engineer at BP explained, “Life offshore is a different world. The platforms and FPSOs [floating production storage and offloading] are amazing feats of engineering. The camaraderie is second to none, which is important when you’re together for weeks at a time. To round it off, I get to take a helicopter to work.”

For those women searching for a career that’s anything but mundane, oil and gas may be just the ticket. Of course, attracting women to the industry is about more than merely getting females on the payroll.

Writes Heidenreich, “Women can bring different leadership skills and behaviours, but it’s not just about diversity of gender, it’s about diversity of thought – more balanced teams make better decisions.”

Scrubbing Off the Wrong Idea

When it comes right down to it, it would appear as though the UK has in its success the same problem as the United States. It’s the same thing that keeps women from vying for lucrative, rewarding professions in the UK oil and gas industry and it’s the same thing that keeps protestors lined up outside fracking sites across the United States and the United Kingdom. That problem: decades of misinformation.

It’s a daunting hill to climb, but with enough education courtesy of writers like Heidenreich and enough perseverance like the kind shown by Cuadrilla and other companies like them, the industry is bound to get there.

DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Marianique Santos/Wikimedia Commons

Oil and Gas Isn’t Immune to the Government Shutdown

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The Trump administration is showing blatant favoritism to the energy industry. 

That’s the complaint coming from several critics of the current administration who feel that state and federal outlets of the Department of the Interior should cease any and all oil and gas-related business while the government is shut down. It’s certainly tempting to believe that the president is twisting the government to his own capitalism-loving ends, but there’s nothing wrong (ethically or legally) with the Interior Department’s handling of the government shutdown.

‘Utterly Immoral’ Behavior from the White House

In the words of California Democrat Alan Lowenthal, “At a time when the shutdown is imposing pain on Americans across all walks of life, it is utterly immoral that the Trump administration treats one group of friendly businesses — the fossil fuel industry — as more valuable and deserving than all others.”

Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva jumped on the anti-energy bandwagon, as well, writing an open letter to David Bernhardt, the acting director of the Interior Department, chastising Bernhardt for, “making sure it’s business as usual for oil and gas industry.”

Those volleys make for intriguing headlines, but they couldn’t be farther from the truth.

A Slimmed-Down BLM

The Department of the Interior — and the oil and gas industry, by extension — has felt the pinch of the longest government shutdown in US history. Throughout the nation, individual offices of the Bureau of Land Management are operating on a skeleton crew. Projects approved before the shutdown and projects that were all but complete before the shutdown are the sole focus of the remaining employees at the BLM. 

New projects, by comparison, have been stopped in their tracks. Though some of the Interior  Department offices remain open for business, to say that the government agency remains untouched by the government shutdown is ludicrous.

You Don’t Want the Government to Halt Oil and Gas Projects

In response to the assault on oil and gas, Western Energy Alliance president Kathleen Sgamma countered, “Just because the government is shut down doesn’t mean private-sector economic activity grinds to a halt.”

Sgamma argues that partisan arguments impacting the government should not derail a thriving economic sector on which millions of Americans rely. There’s also the billions in tax benefits the oil and gas industry delivers every year. That’s to say nothing of the growing number of nations that rely on United States energy development to keep the lights on. 

In other words, to lock the door of the Interior Department would be to jeopardize not only the United States economy, but an energy revolution that’s changing the way the world works. 

That’s not favoritism. It’s a safety net.

Jeffrey Beall/Flickr.com

Colorado Supreme Court Decision Ends the So-Called ‘Children’s Crusade’

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Just like to tragic historical happening for which it was named, the modern day “Children’s Crusade,” as it was dubbed, has concluded in defeat. Frankly, it’s about time.

Martinez v. COGCC

For those unacquainted with the long-running battle, the COGCC has been under attack since 2013, when Xiuhtezcatl Martinez filed a petition with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (or COGCC) that demanded the regulatory agency suspend all new projects until they could prove conclusively that oil and gas development was not harmful to the environment. For nearly six years, the national oil and gas industry has been threatened by anti-fracking activists whose primary selling point is that they’re too young to go into a bar.

Sure, on the surface, that sounds like a noble quest. The fact that Martinez was a kid also made for stylish headlines, as well. Regardless of the long-running debate surrounding it, Martinez’s petition never amounted to more than a poorly-executed ploy designed to shame one of the hardest working regulatory bodies in the country.

Building an Industry While Handcuffed

In the ruling, Justice Richard L. Gabriel pointed out that the primary role of the COGCC is to “foster the development” of Colorado oil and gas. Ceding economic growth to niche environmental concerns comes a clearly defined second. Even then, the COGCC mandate states that addressing environmental concerns should come, “only after taking into consideration cost-effectiveness and technical feasibility.”

Meanwhile, the COGCC finds themselves operating under regulations that are both wildly restrictive and self-imposed. 

In a statement from President & CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association Dan Haley, the exec wrote, “The plaintiffs in the Martinez v. COGCC case ignored, and attempted to disrupt, decades of regulatory precedent and legal oversight. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Act (Act) directs the COGCC to consider multiple factors in making its decisions, including environmental priorities. Following the Act, which is existing Colorado law, the COGCC has enacted the most extensive and stringent regulations for the oil and natural gas industry in the country.” 

Still, however, Colorado oil and gas finds a way to thrive.

The Battle the Continues

The Supreme Court ruling handed down early this week is an undeniable victory for the state’s energy companies. That said, there’s little time for Colorado oil and gas to revel. Opponents of hydraulic fracturing, including the newly elected governor of Colorado, have voiced their disapproval at the decision. In short, it’s only a matter of time before the state’s, and the nation’s energy interests are threatened once more.