Maley's Energy Blog

April 20 marks the ten-year anniversary of the disastrous blowout and fire that led to the sinking of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon and the loss of 11 of the drilling crew. The well, operated by BP and dubbed the Macondo Prospect, spewed an estimated five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the ensuing three months, until it was finally controlled in June.

The spill was an avoidable accident that we all hope never happens again. I blogged extensively about the spill at the time, and continued to write about its regulatory aftermath for several more years; this post from April 2011 contains links to other relevant posts: BP’s Macondo Disaster, One Year Later

The New Orleans Times-Picayune/Advocate marked the anniversary with this article: A decade after BP spill, Gulf of Mexico has rebounded, but wounds still visible (Apr 18, 2020). That article contains links to another TP/Advocate article from March 3, which drew heavily on a report from the George Soros-backed Center for American Progress. This trio of posts inspired me to update my blog.

To summarize…

• The CAP study is cherry-picked specifically to show the industry in a bad light. The offshore safety and environmental record shows decades of improvement; why does CAP show only recent data with no historical context?
• The Times-Picayune/Advocate article attempts to reconstruct the offshore fatality record from press reports and suggests that regulatory reform led to a 2019 spike in fatalities. Of the nine fatalities tallied in 2019, five souls were lost in two helicopter incidents. Four were victims of falls.
• BSEE does not regulate helicopters; yes, they are hazardous. Falls are responsible for a large fraction of offshore injuries/deaths. BSEE is rolling back technical well operation and design issues. Regulatory reform did not increase the likelihood of falls.

More below the fold….

On Election Day, November 3, 2020, Joe Biden will be 2-1/2 weeks short of his 78th birthday: the exact age, to the day, as President Ronald Reagan on his last day in office.

Donald Trump, at 70, was the oldest President in history upon his first inaugural. He would achieve the age of 78 a few months before the end of his second term.

We’ve all seen Biden’s videos. Troubling. Even in comfortable settings, faced with the softest of softball questions, Biden stumbles, fumbles, stammers, wanders off-camera, and loses his train of thought.

Now, if you will …

• Imagine a Biden State of the Union. Oof.
• Imagine Biden with the passcodes for the nuclear football.
• Imagine Biden in a time of true national crisis, like a 9/11, a Katrina, or a pandemic.

That scares the holy bejeezus out of me. Now …

• Imagine a Biden vs Trump debate. There will be three.

That’s gotta scare the holy bejeezus out of the DNC.

It’s a long time from now until the Democratic Convention in August. My gut says there will be some compelling reason for Joe to step aside, to be lauded for a lifetime of service to his country. He’ll be replaced by acclamation, by a candidate with no delegates who has sidestepped the primary circus process.

But if I’m wrong, Joe’s choice of VP candidate matters. A lot.

The Constitution will also matter. Especially Amendment #25, Section 4.

God help us.

Based on data through April 8, it would appear that we are at a peak (“inflection point” — see original post) of new COVID-19 cases, as reported by the states and compiled by the New York Times. The data are available at github.com.

This is about what I predicted for the nation back on March 30. I had also predicted New York to peak around April 3 or 4, but New York persists on more-or-less a plateau.

(Actually, the peak number of new cases nationwide, as well as in NY and US ex-NY, all happened on April 4, last Saturday. I’m relying on the 7-day moving average, as opposed to daily data, to call the inflection point as it takes any day-of-the-week influence out of the data.)

The highest day for deaths across the board was April 7, two days ago. That is good news, although the moving average for deaths persists above the inflection point. If this curve trends down, that will be very good news. On the current trend, the inflection point is still a few days away (about April 15 — See below.)

Growth Rate plot of 7-day moving average trends. The projection crosses 1.0 on or about 4/15.

Overall, the number of cases is tracking below my estimates. I’ll stand by my estimate of 800K to 1 million diagnosed infections, although I’ll revise the range of deaths slightly downward to 45- to 55K. If the trends continue improving, those numbers will be revised downward. (The last IHME numbers I saw were updated April 4, and had been revised down to 60,400 deaths, with a range from 32K to 137K. So we’re converging.)

New Cases continue to track below my estimate. I discount the significance of the recent dip in the curves; I think the 7-day moving average curves applied in the Growth Rate curves are more significant.

Curves are generally tracking below my original estimates but may peak April 8 or 9. Click to enlarge.

A look at Italy has caused me to adjust my projection of both ultimate cases and deaths. According to Italy curves (worldometer.com – see below), the peak in deaths lagged the peak in “new cases” by about six days. The current ratio of reported deaths to cumulative cases of six days ago is roughly 5.9%.

If the “new cases” curve is symmetrical, half the total cases would occur after the peak. The curve for Italy is skewed to the right, however, suggesting that the majority of cases occur after the peak.

Using the above logic, and my estimate that Total U.S. Cases will peak at 400K cumulative, by estimate of ultimate cases is in the range 800K to 1 million.

Applying the 5.9% to remaining cases suggest ultimate mortality of 48K to 60K.

The IHME estimate of deaths has been updated as of April 4. Estimated deaths 81.8K with a range of confidence from 50K to 137K.

State data courtesy New York Times at github.com.

Italy “New Cases” (above) and Italy “Deaths from worldometer.com. It appears that New Cases peaked on March 21, while Deaths peaked March 27. Note that neither curve appears particularly symmetrical about the peak.

Sean Hannity is off base in his criticism of Burisma and its appointment of Hunter Biden to its board.

Hannity hammers away at the younger Biden’s lack of oil and gas experience. Fact is, that’s kind of the point of outside directors. Industry insiders can be subject to groupthink. Outside directors can bring perspective and expertise in general business. I would guess that most, if not all, American oil and gas corporations, both large and small, have lawyers, investment bankers, and general business professionals with no oil and gas experience on their boards.

However…

Hunter Biden was a cokehead. That’s what makes his seat on Burisma’s board so objectionable. Hunter brought nothing to the picnic other than his name and his connection to his (then) powerful dad. Most legitimate companies would avoid anyone with Hunter’s checkered c.v.

I was invited to address the New Orleans Chapter of the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists (SIPES) on January 21, 2020.

The title of my talk was “The Man Who Would Be King: The Strange-But-True Story of Dr. Hubbert and Peak Oil.” I’d given this talk a few years ago at an industry luncheon in Lafayette, but with newly-updated data and a few new graphs, the story has come into sharper focus.

The audience on this occasion was mostly earth science professionals. In spite of moderate technical content, it should appeal to a broader audience as a tale of a forgotten slice of American history, radical politics, and the philosophy of growth and resource development.

A video of the presentation available at this link.

Sorry, I’m unable to embed the video. If you go to the website, scroll down until you find me.