Daily Archives: April 2, 2021

The United States offshore wind industry is tiny, with just seven wind turbines operating off Rhode Island and Virginia. The few attempts to build large-scale wind farms like Europes have run into long delays, but that may be about to change.

The Biden administration announced on March 29, 2021, that it would accelerate the federal review process for offshore wind projects and provide more funding. It also set a goal: Develop 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity this decade enough to power 10 million homes with clean energy. To put that in perspective, the U.S. has just 42 megawatts today.

Several wind farm developers already hold leases in prime locations off the Eastern Seaboard, suggesting plenty of interest. So, will the governments new goals and promise of additional funding be enough to finally launch a thriving offshore wind industry?

As engineering professors leading the Energy Transition Initiative and Wind Energy Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we have been closely watching the industrys challenges and progress. The process could move quickly once permitting and approvals are on track, but there are still obstacles.

Why offshore wind plans stalled under Trump

Vineyard Wind, which is likely to become the nations first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, had planned to begin construction in 2019 about 15 miles off Marthas Vineyard. A ruling by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under the Trump administration stalled it, and also cast a shadow over other wind farm plans.

The agency ruled that the developers needed to address what is called cumulative impacts what the East Coast will look like when there are not one or two, but 20 or 40 large-scale wind farms. That part of the U.S. coast is ideal for wind power because of its wide, shallow shelf and proximity to cities that are looking for renewable electricity to reduce their climate impact.

Many researchers studying offshore wind, including some of our colleagues, urge planners to take this perspective. But, thinking carefully about the far future does not justify a delay in the first utility-scale wind farm.

That first large wind farm should be an opportunity to learn, including about how wind turbines will interact with marine ecosystems. Right now, there is almost no data on the impacts of offshore wind on marine wildlife birds, bats, whales, fish especially on wildlife that is native to New England. The knowledge gained will be invaluable in moving forward responsibly.

Is fast-tracking federal approvals enough?

Speeding up federal approvals for offshore wind farms is an important first step, but those arent the only hurdles for offshore wind farm developers.

A large number of state environmental and coastal agencies still must approve, and the communities where cables come ashore will also have a say. Many of the Northeast states have their own offshore wind energy goals, so theyre likely to support wind farms, but some wealthy communities and the fishing industry have pushed back on wind power in the past.

The federal approval process, even fast-tracked, is also time-consuming. The government conducts reviews and requires site assessment plans, including geological, environmental and hazard surveys. From planning to construction, the entire process can take five to six years or more.

Is the U.S. ready to build offshore turbines?

Some other big questions revolve around construction.

Under a 1920 law known as the Jones Act, only U.S.-registered vessels operated by U.S. citizens or permanent residents can move cargo between U.S. ports. In December 2020, Congress made clear that this law applies to wind turbine construction, too.

When companies build offshore wind turbines today, they use special vessels for the installation of the most common offshore turbine designs. The U.S. doesnt have any of these vessels yet, and the Jones Act makes it difficult to rely on vessels from Europe to do the job. There is promise, though: The first U.S.-made version of this vessel is being built in Texas right now. Thats one the country will need several to meet the new goal.

A thriving wind power industry will also need ports for storing and deploying the long turbine blades, plus a trained workforce for construction and turbine maintenance.

A few coastal states have a head start on this. Massachusetts started laying the groundwork early and already has a port terminal in New Bedford to support the construction and deployment of future offshore wind projects. New Jersey recently announced a plan for a new offshore wind port that will start construction in 2022.

States are also investing in training. New York state announced a $20 million offshore wind training institute in January 2021 with the goal of training 2,500 workers for the industry and maintenance. The Biden administration envisions 44,000 people employed in offshore wind by 2030 and many more in communities connected to offshore wind power activity.

Will offshore wind pay off?

In Europe, where many governments have reduced regulatory risk, the cost of offshore wind energy has come down rapidly, much faster than experts expected, to around $50 per megawatt-hour. If the Biden administrations new approach allow U.S. wind farms to achieve costs like this, then offshore wind, with its proximity to large urban centers on the East Coast, will be competitive.

Its also important to recognize other benefits. Every year of delay for a large-scale wind farm costs the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in climate benefits. The Biden administration calculates that its new wind power goal would avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, roughly equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the road for a year.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The U.S. Just Set Ambitious Offshore Wind Power Targets What Will It Take to Meet Them? - GovExec.com

This photograph shows turbines at the Borkum Riffgrund 2 wind farm, which Orsted owns 50% of.

CharlieChesvick | iStock Unreleased | Getty Images

Danish energy company Orsted wants to construct a large-scale offshore wind farm in the North Sea and link it to so-called "renewable" hydrogen production on the European mainland, with the project garnering support from several major industrial firms.

Under the proposals, which were outlined on Wednesday, Orsted would develop a 2 gigawatt (GW) offshore wind facility and 1 GW of electrolyzer capacity, with the company claiming its plans would result in "one of the world's largest renewable hydrogen plants to be linked to industrial demand."

The SeaH2Land development which is supported by companies including ArcelorMittal, Yara and Dow would also include 45 kilometers of hydrogen pipelines between Belgium and the Netherlands.

The electrolyzer part of the project to be built in two 500 megawatt phases would use electricity from the wind farm to produce hydrogen.

Among other things, partners involved in the development need to undertake a full feasibility study of SeaH2Land, while Orsted has yet to take a final investment decision. If all goes smoothly and the project gets the green light, however, both portions of the electrolyzer could be up and running by 2030.

"As the world looks to decarbonise, it's paramount that we act now to secure the long-term competitiveness of European industry in a green economy," Martin Neubert, Orsted's chief commercial officer, said in a statement.

Described by the International Energy Agency as a "versatile energy carrier," hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be produced in a number of ways.

One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. If the electricity used in the process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar then some describe it as "green" or "renewable" hydrogen.

The last few years have seen a number of businesses take an interest in projects connected to renewable hydrogen, while major economies such as the European Union have laid out plans to install at least 40 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolyzers by 2030.

In March, a major green hydrogen facility in Germany started operations. The "WindH2" project, as it's known, involves German steel giant Salzgitter, E.ON subsidiary Avacon and Linde, a firm specializing in engineering and industrial gases.

Elsewhere, a subsidiary of multinational building materials firm HeidelbergCement has worked with researchers from Swansea University to install and operate a green hydrogen demonstration unit at a site in the U.K.

The interest in hydrogen is not restricted to Europe. In a speech last November, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his country was proposing to launch what he described as "a comprehensive National Hydrogen Energy Mission."

Presenting the country's budget earlier this year, Nirmala Sitharaman, India's finance minister, referenced Modi's announcement, adding: "It is now proposed to launch a Hydrogen Energy Mission in 2021-22 for generating hydrogen from green power sources."

The planet's third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, India's attempt to embrace hydrogen and other renewable technologies it's targeting 450 GW of renewable capacity by 2030 would, if fully realized, represent a significant shift for the country.

Continued here:

Orsted to link a huge offshore wind farm to 'renewable' hydrogen production - CNBC

Offshore oil and gas drilling is set for a rebound this year following a major 2020 pullback when exploration and production companies deferred many activities due to the pandemic and the collapse in oil prices. Lower lifting and breakeven costs at the most prolific offshore oil regions off Brazil and Guyana are setting the stage for a rebound in offshore drilling in South America, which will be one of the main growth drivers of global offshore activity this year, analysts say.

Drilling and well services spending in Latin America is forecast to grow strongly, thanks to continued offshore activity in Brazil as Brazils state oil giant Petrobras focuses on the deepwater pre-salt basin. The promising Guyana basin will also see new wells drilled and discoveries developed, according to the latest World Drilling & Well Services Market Forecast 2021-2025 Q1 by Westwood Global Energy.

Global Offshore Spending To Grow From 2020 Lows

Although operators around the world remain cautious about capex, this years expenditure on drilling & well services (DWS)both offshore and onshoreis set to grow to US$156 billion, slightly up from last year. The higher spending will be the result of higher oil prices and forecasts of recovery in demand, Westwood Global Energy said.

The United States, China, and Russia will lead onshore drilling activities, while Brazil and Guyana will be the key drivers of offshore spending, the analysts said.

Rystad Energy also sees South AmericaBrazil and Guyana in particularas the main contributor to offshore drilling growth. Offshore activity is set for annual increases of around 10 percent in each of 2021 and 2022, the energy research firm said last week.

In contrast to previous years, when the North American shale sector led production growth, we expect the onshore and offshore shelf in the Middle East and the deepwater market in South America to be the main drivers of growth going forward, said Daniel Holmedal, energy research analyst at Rystad Energy.

Related: U.S. Oil Rig Count Posts Double-Digit Gains As Oil Prices Rise Offshore investment is set for a rapid rebound this year, driven by deferred projects from 2020 and a resurgent Petrobras, Thom Payne, Head of Offshore at Westwood Global Energy, wrote in an analysis in February.

Low breakeven costs make Brazils pre-salt and Guyanas basin very attractive drilling opportunities, even if oil prices were at $40 per barrel.

Projects in Brazils pre-salt region have breakeven oil prices as low as $35 per barrel, Effuah Alleyne, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, said at the end of last year.

Guyanas ultra-deepwater projects in the frontier Guyana-Suriname Basin have breakeven oil prices as low as $23/bbl, with short-term production expected to grow 10-fold by 2024 from projects such as Liza Phase 2, Alleyne noted.

Guyana A Top Priority For Exxon

Exxons continued exploration and development on the Stabroek block offshore Guyana is set to drive offshore drilling in the country in the coming years.

Guyana is one of the top priorities in the U.S. supermajors strategy to focus on high-return and cash-generating projects that would allow it to grow its dividend through 2025.

90 percent of our upstream investments in resource additions, including in Guyana, Brazil and the U.S. Permian Basin, generate a 10 percent return at $35 per barrel or less, Exxons chairman and CEO Darren Woods said on the investor day last month.

Despite disappointing early 2021 drilling results, exploration activity in Guyana is on track to set an annual record of 16 wells, including on the Stabroek block, according to Rystad Energy.

Related: Recent SEC Decision Could Spark Investment In Big Oil

Exxon is also currently developing the Liza Phase 2 Project, designed to pump up to 220,000 bpd with a floating, production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO), with start-up expected in the middle of next year. Exxon has also recently made the final investment decision on the Payara oilfield offshore Guyana, expecting the project to yield up to 220,000 bpd of crude when commercial production begins in 2024.

Brazils Petrobras Focuses On The Prolific Pre-salt Basin

Petrobras is heavily divesting non-core assets onshore and offshore, as well as refinery operations, as it continues to cut its massive debt and bets big on boosting production and development in the very prolific and low-cost pre-salt basin.

Over the past five years, the share of the pre-salt region in the companys oil and gas production has jumped to 66 percent in 2020 from just 24 percent in 2015, Petrobras said earlier this year when it announced that its 2020 annual oil and gas production hit a record high. Production in the pre-salt basin totaled 1.86 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) in 2020 out of Petrobras total 2.84 million boed output last year.

Despite the crash in oil prices, Petrobras continued its strong cash flow generation, with free cash flow at US$10.4 billion for the first nine months of 2020, Fitch Ratings said in February, affirming its ratings on Petrobras.

The strong cash flow generation, even with collapsing oil prices the primary result of cost and capex reductions. Petrobras reported a material decline in lifting costs in 2020 to around US$5.10 per barrel of oil equivalent (boe) from approximately US$9.6/boe in 2019, Fitch said. The significant decrease in lifting costs was the result of cost reductions and the growing share of Petrobras pre-salt production, which has a lower lifting cost than legacy production, the rating agency noted.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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The 2 Nations Driving The Recovery In Offshore Oil - OilPrice.com

Offshore flow is lingering across the region Thursday, which means the warmer daytime highs will continue for the central coast.

Expect temperatures along the coast to range from the mid-to-upper 70s, while coastal and inland valleys will likely have another 80-degree day. One change in the forecast Thursday morning will be the return of mid-to-high level cloud cover. The clouds will mostly mix out by the afternoon, but there is a possibility they could linger towards the coast and over the valleys too.

Afternoon winds will primarily shift out of the northwest Thursday afternoon and be mild with wind speeds up to 10 miles per hour.

Onshore flow is set to gradually increase through the weekend, which means daytime highs will start to trend down. Most valley locations will make a return to the 60s and 70s through the start of next week with even cooler temperatures expected along the coast.

Original post:

Offshore flow will bring continued warming ahead of a cooler weekend - KSBY San Luis Obispo News

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Offshore Oil and Gas Seismic Equipment and Acquisitions Market 2021-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The publisher has been monitoring the offshore oil and gas seismic equipment and acquisitions market and it is poised to grow by $1.65 billion during 2021-2025 progressing at a CAGR of 8% during the forecast period.

The report on offshore oil and gas seismic equipment and acquisitions market provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors.

The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by the increasing investments in offshore upstream sector and growing demand for oil and natural gas.

The offshore oil and gas seismic equipment and acquisitions market analysis includes technology segment and geographical landscapes. This study identifies the rise in deepwater and ultra-deepwater E&P projects as one of the prime reasons driving the offshore oil and gas seismic equipment and acquisitions market growth during the next few years.

Companies Mentioned

The report on offshore oil and gas seismic equipment and acquisitions market covers the following areas:

The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to an analysis of the key vendors.

The publisher presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters such as profit, pricing, competition, and promotions. It presents various market facets by identifying the key industry influencers. The data presented is comprehensive, reliable, and a result of extensive research - both primary and secondary. The market research reports provide a complete competitive landscape and an in-depth vendor selection methodology and analysis using qualitative and quantitative research to forecast an accurate market growth.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary

2. Market Landscape

3. Market Sizing

4. Five Forces Analysis

5. Market Segmentation by Technology

6. Customer landscape

7. Geographic Landscape

8. Vendor Landscape

9. Vendor Analysis

10. Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/u11k5o

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Outlook on the Offshore Oil and Gas Seismic Equipment and Acquisitions Global Market to 2025 - Growing Demand for Oil and Natural Gas is Driving the...

The central coast will continue to heat up Wednesday as high pressure and offshore flow bring warmer temperatures to the region.

Throughout the morning commute, skies will be clear and winds will be mild to moderate. As of 4:15 a.m., wind speeds near the north coast were clocking in from 25-35 miles per hour. Winds will shift out of the northeast throughout the afternoon and taper off slightly and be close to 20 mph.

Temperatures will be above average for most, if not all, the area. Inland valley communities will range from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, while coastal valleys will range from the upper 70s to mid-80s. The beaches will be warm as well with daytime highs expected to reach the mid-70s to low 80s.

For those with allergies, pollen levels will continue to be at a high-level Wednesday which may result in irritation for those who spend time outside.

Onshore flow is expected to make a return Thursday and bring cooler temperatures back to the forecast through the end of the weekend.

Originally posted here:

Offshore flow and high pressure will bring daytime highs up to the 80s across the central coast Wednesday - KSBY San Luis Obispo News

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway will press ahead with North Sea wind power this year, awarding its first development licences as it spurs the transition of its oil and gas industry and despite its already plentiful renewables supply.

FILE PHOTO: A view of the Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea, January 7, 2020. Carina Johansen/NTB Scanpix/via REUTERS

The government has earmarked two areas in the North Sea for up to 4.5 gigawatts of floating and bottom-fixed wind turbine capacity, just under half the current installed capacity in Britain, Europes offshore wind leader.

Norway does not actually need offshore wind farms for power - nearly all its electricity comes from renewables already - but instead sees the sector as a means of helping its vast oil and gas industry secure a new, low-carbon business model for the future.

Oslo will present details of the tender this spring as part of a white paper on the energy sector, and first wind farms could be in operation by the end of the decade.

Many details remain unclear but the process should follow oil and gas exploration procedures where typically seabed rent is not charged.

Norway, western Europes largest oil and gas producer, is examining how it can adapt its petroleum industry.

Norways Equinor and several other European oil firms including Total, BP and Shell have announced plans to massively scale up their renewable power portfolios, often focusing on offshore wind, as they seek to reduce reliance on oil to satisfy stakeholders and meet climate targets.

We believe that especially offshore resources offer all the prerequisites to succeed. We have the knowledge, the experience, we have a good track record from establishing and building advanced installation in tough conditions far out at sea, NOG oil lobby boss Anniken Hauglie told Reuters.

We now need to use the time to build up new industries, new value chains, that will over time become the new legs for Norway to stand on, she said.

(Graphic: Norwegian offshore wind areas - )

The two sites - Utsira Nord, northwest of the oil industry capital Stavanger and Soerlige Nordsjoe II, bordering the Danish sector of the North Sea - both include deep water sections more suited to floating turbines.

Floating turbines are a less mature technology but widely seen as offering the greatest opportunity for Norwegian firms.

Equinor is developing one such pilot project, called Hywind Tampen, which will supply power to its Gullfaks oil platform.

Norway is seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions produced by its offshore platforms, which tend to be powered by on-site gas turbines. Linking them to the power grid onshore is one option, and offshore wind turbines are another.

A lot of players want to position themselves in Norway, as it is a huge flagship project, said Vegard Wiik Vollset, vice-president renewable energy at consultancy Rystad Energy.

It has clear synergies for some of these companies given its potential for electrification of oil and gas fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

Like oil, Norway would export the offshore wind it produces. In 2020, hydro and onshore wind power accounted for more than 98% of Norways record high electricity production of 154.2 terawatt hours (TWh), generating net exports of 20.5 TWh, data from regulator NVE showed.

(Graphic: Norwegian power production 2020 - )

The way the market is looking now, we believe there will be a power surplus for a long time into the future, said Christian Rynning-Toennesen, CEO of top utility Statkraft.

Statkraft will participate in the offshore wind tender with Aker Offshore Wind, a company created by the Aker group, which previously focused mainly on oil and gas.

Non-EU Norway could also help to meet the European Unions goal of increasing offshore wind power capacity to 60 GW by 2030 from 12 GW currently.

If they want to achieve it, it needs to happen in the North Sea and if it happens in the North Sea, Norway should be a part of it, said Steffen Syvertsen, CEO of utility Agder Energi.

Agder Energi is also bidding in the upcoming offshore wind licensing round, teaming up with Vaargroenn (our green in Norwegian), a joint venture of private equity firm HitecVision, once solely focused on oil and gas, and Italian energy producer Eni.

Offshore wind in Norway remains unprofitable without subsidies, noted Sigbjoern Seland, chief analyst at StormGeo Nena Analysis, adding the technology needs to achieve continued sharp cost cuts, move the cost of grid connection away from developers and generally higher demand.

Based on current developments, this could happen in 5-8 years time, most likely in 10-15 years, Seland said.

Its not enough with one wind farm, you need a view of 3-4 wind farms of a certain size, said Daniel Willoch, a policy adviser at wind power lobby group NORWEA.

Others seemed confident of government support.

One thing we have seen across the world is that governments find their own way to support industrial development, said Aker Offshore Wind CEO Astrid Skarheim Onsum.

Norway had access to a vast toolbox of support mechanisms and a history of finding tailored solutions to support its industrial development, she added.

It reminds me a little of the time we discovered oil for the first time, Tina Bru, oil and energy minister, told a recent energy conference.

Editing by Gwladys Fouche and Jason Neely

Read more:

Norway readies first offshore wind tenders to spur oil industry transition - Reuters

Multinational corporations shifted $1 trillion in profits from the countries where their economic activity takes place to a small number of tax havens in 2016, depriving governments worldwide of more than $200 billion in tax revenues, a new study shows.

Researchers with the U.K.-based International Centre for Tax and Development found that multinationals headquartered in the United States and Bermuda used profit-shifting more aggressively, while lower-income countries suffered the most losses because of such practices.

The study was mainly based on corporate information released for the first time last year by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and only data from 2016 is available.

Its such a simple question: Where do [multinationals] pay taxes? And how much do they pay in low income countries? said Petr Jansk, an economist at Charles University, in Prague, and one of the authors of the study.

The main issue at stake is not that multinational corporations are benefiting from this tax avoidance scheme but that somebody is being harmed, Jansk said. Somebody is losing out because of this.

In 2017, the Paradise Papers investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists exposed the tax engineering of more than 100 multinational corporations, including Apple, Nike and Botox-maker Allergan. For instance, ICIJ documented how Apple found ways to keep tax rates ultra-low and accumulate a $252 billion mountain of cash offshore.

Jansk said that the new study shows that those are not isolated cases.

Ten tax havens received most of the companies profits, according to the ICTD research. Those include three European countries Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland as well as the Cayman Islands, Singapore, Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

While African countries appear to be the most vulnerable to profit-shifting, the study shows how multinationals tax avoidance schemes also deprive high-income countries, such as the U.S., Germany and France, of financial resources. The two European countries are estimated to lose at least one quarter of their profit base to profit shifting, it said.

Profit shifting is thus a phenomenon where the majority of countries lose, the researchers wrote in the report.

The ICTD team used data from the U.S. revenue service and country-level information that corporations in more than 50 OECD member countries have agreed to report.

The new rule requires companies with more than $850 million in revenues to report how much they pay in taxes in individual jurisdictions and where they book income. The initiative is part of a coordinated effort to tackle tax avoidance by corporations and assess its global economic impact.

However, Jansk said he was disappointed when he realized that only a few countries have actually collected and shared the information with the public. Some only provided aggregated data without providing details on multinationals tax payments and profit allocation at the country level.

In total, the OECD has released data on 4,000 multinationals headquartered in 26 jurisdictions and operating across more than 100 jurisdictions worldwide.

The researchers expect to have 2017 data in July.

In the meantime, they hope that policymakers will consider the new findings when discussing the introduction of a global minimum tax for multinationals. The initiative called the Paris climate accord of taxes by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has recently seen the support of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The OECD member countries are expected to reach agreement on the minimum tax reform by mid 2021.

Originally posted here:

Multinationals shifted $1 trillion offshore, stripping countries of billions in tax revenues, study says - ICIJ - ICIJ.org