Saving Seafood

BP Enters Offshore Wind Market With $1.1 Billion Equinor Deal. Why The Stock Is Falling.

September 11, 2020 — BP stock fell on Thursday, as the oil major entered the offshore wind market in a $1.1 billion deal with Norwegian energy giant Equinor.

The FTSE 100-listed company has agreed to buy 50% stakes in two of Equinor’s wind farm developments on the U.S. East Coast—the Empire Wind project in New York and the Beacon Wind farm in Massachusetts.

The two companies have also formed a strategic partnership to pursue further opportunities for offshore wind in the U.S.

The back story. In February—shortly after Bernard Looney became its chief executive—BP set out an action plan to become net zero on carbon by 2050. The company ramped up its strategy last month, saying it won’t explore in any new countries and announcing a tenfold increase in low-carbon investment to $5 billion a year by 2030.

Read the full story at MarketWatch

The Deepwater Horizon Disaster Fueled a Gulf Science Bonanza

April 23, 2020 — After the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded a decade ago this month, killing 11 workers and spewing a massive black curtain of crude oil across the Gulf of Mexico, thousands of first responders and cleanup workers arrived on the scene. So too did an army of scientists. Aboard seagoing research vessels and wading along beaches and marshes, they came to assess the catastrophe and track it over time. British Petroleum, owner of the rig, agreed to fund a scientific stimulus package of $500 million just a few weeks after the April 20, 2010, blowout.

The 134 million gallons of oil devastated wildlife from Texas to Florida, killing thousands of marine mammals, such as dolphins and sea turtles, according to federal officials, and destroying shoreline and underwater habitats for commercially important fish, crabs, shrimp, and oysters. More than 25,000 fishermen and seafood industry workers were suddenly out of work, with a 10-year price tag of $4.5 billion in total economic losses, according to a 2019 study by a trio of researchers funded in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at Wired

10 years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, oil pollution found in thousands of fish, study says

April 21, 2020 — Oil pollution has been detected in thousands of fish in the Gulf of Mexico, including higher levels in popular seafood choices like yellowfin tuna, tilefish and red drum, according to a new study.

The research was carried out between 2011 and 2018, sampling more than 2,500 individual fish that belonged to 91 species living in 359 different locations in the Gulf. All of them contained oil exposure.

When the Deepwater Horizon explosion occurred 10 years ago, millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico’s waters over 87 days. The BP oil spill became the largest accidental oil spill in US history.

After the explosion, researchers, like those at the University of South Florida, raced to study the spill and its environmental effects in real time.

Weeks later, BP made a 10-year, $500 million commitment to fund research. While the funding comes to a close this year, research done over the last 10 years is being released.

Read the full story at CNN

Nearly $226M to restore open Gulf after 2010 BP oil spill

December 16, 2019 — Federal agencies have approved nearly $226 million for 18 projects to restore open ocean and marine habitats that were decimated in the Gulf of Mexico by the 2010 BP oil spill.

The projects range from $52.6 million to study deep-sea habitats to $290,000 to find ways to keep sea turtles from swallowing or getting snagged on hooks or tangled in lines set out for miles along reefs.

They are described in a 490-page report released Tuesday.

The nonprofit Ocean Conservancy said it’s “the world’s first plan to restore the open ocean and deep-sea environment from a major oil disaster.”

“Ocean Conservancy welcomes this major conservation milestone for the Gulf of Mexico,” CEO Janis Searles Jones said in a news release.

The explosion April 20, 2010, on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 workers. There are varying estimates on how much oil was released. According to Ocean Conservancy, the well spewed 210 million gallons (795 million liters) of oil before it was capped 87 days later.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

USD 226 million in Deepwater Horizon settlement funds to fund marine restoration projects in Gulf of Mexico

December 11, 2019 — Around USD 226 million (EUR 234.3 million) in funding from the Deepwater Horizon disaster settlement will be used to fund eighteen projects to restore the Gulf of Mexico’s marine environment.

Among the projects gaining funding as part of the Final Open Ocean Restoration Plan 2, which was formally announced on 10 December after a 6-month review period, is an effort to reduce fish and turtle bycatch in the Gulf’s shrimp fishery, which received more than USD 17 million (EUR 15.3 million) in funding, and programs to encourage greater adoption of devices to prevent barotrauma in fish caught by recreational anglers, which received USD 30 million (EUR 27.1 million).

Read the full story at Seafood Source