US backs permits for oil surveys in the Atlantic

President Donald Trump's administration is moving closer to allowing companies to search for oil and natural gas deposits along a stretch of water between Delaware and Florida that has been off limits to drilling for decades.

The US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) today authorized permits for five seismic surveys that would map out hydrocarbon-bearing formations beneath the seafloor but also generate noise that could disrupt whales and other marine life.

The step comes as the administration continues work on a contested offshore leasing plan that could hold oil and gas lease sales in the mid-Atlantic and south Atlantic as soon as 2020.

The seismic surveys, which still need authorization from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, would be the first to take place off the eastern seaboard in 30 years. The surveys use powerful airguns to generate seismic waves, which can reveal the structure of geologic formations thousands of feet below the seafloor.

Environmentalists oppose the surveys, which they see as a precursor to opening the Atlantic to oil and gas drilling. Surfrider Foundation legal director Angela Howe said seismic surveying was a "violent, destructive precursor" to drilling that could harm thousands of whales, dolphins, manatees and sea turtles. Earthjustice managing attorney Steve Mashuda said the group was looking at "all available tools" to fight the surveys.

NMFS by law is required to authorize industrial activities that will lead to the "incidental harassment" of marine mammals. The geophysical surveying companies WesternGeco, CGG Services, Spectrum Geo, TGS-NOPEC and ION GeoVentures applied for those permits in 2014 and 2015.

Former president Barack Obama's administration last year denied permits partly because it scrapped plans to allow leasing in the Atlantic. But the Trump administration restarted the permitting process and last June proposed to allow all the surveys, with some restrictions to protect marine mammals. The action today finalizes the authorization.

The US says the mid-Atlantic and south Atlantic — the two planning areas the surveys would target — hold an estimated 2.8bn bl of crude and 26 Tcf of natural gas. That is a fraction of the 44.8bn bl of crude and 130 Tcf of natural gas projected to remain in the western and central portions of the US Gulf of Mexico where nearly all offshore drilling in the US has taken place over the past century.

Oil and gas companies say seismic surveys and offshore leasing need to start soon to ensure there is time to meet future energy demand. Commercial oil and gas production in the Atlantic would likely take more than a decade and billions of dollars to complete surveys, drill exploration wells and build out pipelines and other infrastructure needed to transport oil and gas to the shoreline.

"Our onshore energy resources will not last forever, so when we decide whether to develop our offshore resources, we are really deciding nothing less than whether our future will be one of energy abundance or energy scarcity," Explore Offshore co-chair Jim Nicholson said during a briefing on Capitol Hill on 28 November.

Atlantic coast states largely oppose offshore drilling. The governors Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have opposed the administration plan to open their coasts to drilling. BOEM is expected to publish an updated version of its leasing plan as soon as next month, with the goal to finalize it sometime next year.