Big shift in US energy position raises disaster risks too: panel
Washington (Platts)--31Mar2013/943 am EDT/1343 GMT
Advances in technology that have made the US awash in oil and natural
gas reserves also boost the risk of disaster, a panel of experts said in
a television interview with Platts Energy Week airing Sunday in the US.
Industry and government regulators must work together to see that
complex technology is managed safely, the panel said on the third
anniversary airing of the program.
"We're pushing the envelope, so a lot of these frontier exploration
plays, they're technically complex, (they) require...combined
collaboration of industry and government that will make this work,"
Frank Verrastro, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies said.
The enormous resources that have been unlocked over the past five years
or so have come at a price, including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, and
several pipeline spills, the panel noted.
"It has caused a tremendous rethinking internally in the industry as
well as by the regulators--increased compliance and oversight, increased
review of existing regulations, updating existing regulations," Sheila
Hollis, a partner in the law firm of Duane Morris, said. "I think
definitely there's been a strong response both by regulators and
regulated and I see that continuing."
While the immediate response to such disasters has been positive, the
challenge going forward is "maintaining that focus and attention to
those issues over the medium term and the long term," said Michael
Bromwich, head of the Bromwich Group and the official brought in to
reform US oversight of offshore drilling after Deepwater Horizon. "I
think people's attention gets diverted, people start to become
complacent again because there hasn't been a serious accident in a while
and I think that the big risk." SHARING US ENERGY ABUNDANCE The energy
resources unlocked by technology have completely changed the perception
of the US as a net energy consumer to a country that is able to export
resources, the panel said.
Harris described the rapid shift in the US energy outlook to the
"surprise Powerball winner, who wakes up and realizes there is an
abundance in the United States and we can share it with the rest of the
world, too.
"Countries that desperately need clean-burning fuels like natural gas,
we can get it to them now, we can be providers to the world as well as
meet all our own needs," Harris said.
J. Bennett Johnston, the longtime US Senator from Louisiana and the
first guest on Platts Energy Week, said that President Barack Obama will
likely sidestep Congress and address climate change issues through
regulation in his second term.
"I think that's the only way he can do it," Johnston said.
Johnston also said that US energy independence, which was considered "a
pipe dream just a few years ago," is now "entirely achievable."
Platts Energy Week airs on Sundays in Washington on WUSA, a CBS
affiliate, and in Houston on KUHT, a PBS affiliate, as well as on other
PBS stations in the US. The program is also available on the web at
www.plattsenergyweektv.com.
--Gary Gentile,
gary_gentile@platts.com
© 2013 Platts, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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