Chapter III

ENERGY

The United States will of necessity continue to rely heavily upon petroleum and natural gas to meet rising energy demands for some years to come. Oil and gas supplies must be augmented rapidly, in a manner consistent with our economic, environmental, and security interests, despite recent declining trends in domestic production.

The available sources for increasing supplies are primarily imports from foreign areas having excess production capacity, Northern Alaska reserves, and the large untapped potential reserves of the nation's continental shelves and adjacent slopes. Imports and offshore oil production necessarily involve marine operations, as will also tapping Alaskan reserves if we are to minimize further increasingly serious delays in bringing Alaskan crude to our refineries. The Federal Government and industry share an interest in these sources and are strengthening their associations in an effort to expedite delivery of supplies from all three. No one of them is adequate to meet projected demands for hydrocarbons, even if supplemented by "synthetic" crude and natural gas from oil shale, coal, or other sources.

Of these three sources, increasing imports is the one most readily available to meet current and near-term shortages. Three to five years will be required to complete construction and begin delivery of oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) and to find, explore, develop, and produce new oil fields on the continental shelves. Supertankers or "VLCC's" (very large crude carriers) and LNG (liquified natural gas) carriers can provide the most economical and environmentally desirable means of delivering imports from distant areas, such as the Middle and Near East, which are currently the only regions with sufficient producing capacity to fulfill our Nation's demands. The VLCC's require deepwater ports. Planning for these ports and for supporting facilities to handle and process their cargo requires consideration of many factors to assure efficient operations and to minimize risks to the environment.

Economic impacts and environmental concerns, as well as security considerations associated with the import of oil and gas from foreign areas, provide strong incentives for accelerated development of

Shown bow on, this supertanker, 326,000 tons, has a length of 1,135 feet and a (Gulf Oil Corp. Photo-Courtesy of American Petroleum Institute)

loaded draft of 80 feet.

domestic resources. Construction and full-scale operation of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which includes marine transportation from Port Valdez, Alaska, to various west coast ports, will provide two million barrels of oil daily, a rate equal to one-third of present import levels. Our interest in rapidly increasing our supply of domestic oil and in reducing the balance of payments problem associated with imports will be best served by the Alaskan pipeline. As part of the overall transportation problem, the Federal Government is planning programs to detect and control oil spillage or other pollution and to augment forecasts of marine weather and operating conditions along the tanker routes.

For a number of years, increasing domestic offshore oil and gas production has slightly more than offset an accelerating decline in onshore production. In 1972, however, total domestic petroleum production began declining, while the demand for oil products continued to increase. The growth in demand necessitated lifting import quotas to avoid possible shortages. Future oil imports will be subject to license fee rather than quota. The untapped petroleum potentials of the continental shelves appear large, and if developed more rapidly, would significantly improve levels of total domestic production. Within a given region, development of reserves to meet national needs must be balanced against a number of economic, social, and environmental factors, such as other uses of promising areas (including uses related to recreation, esthetics, and national security), and natural conditions and hazards that may affect safety of the operations. With industry cooperation, the Federal Government is intensifying efforts to identify and lease the most promising regions, and to collect and evaluate data that will enable sound resource management decisions.

In the following sections, marine technological aspects of the petroleum supply problem are discussed in more detail.

Deepwater Ports

The expanding fleet of supertankers that now serves Europe, Japan, and other foreign areas having deepwater ports has demonstrated the economy and other benefits of transporting oil by this means. Using supertankers rather than smaller vessels to deliver oil from the Middle East to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States would allow major savings in transportation costs. Although cost savings and other economic benefits will be significant, a major advantage of the use of supertankers is the smaller number of ships and operations required, thereby lessening the chances of oil spillage through collisions or cargo handling. Offshore placement of the superports would offer the added advantages of reducing risk of groundings, traffic density, and potential damage to beaches and the nearshore. Yet another environmental advantage of offshore superports is that they will permit the use of new VLCC's with double bottoms and segregated ballast tanks.

Establishing the feasibility of deepwater port systems involves not only economic, engineering, environmental, and operational factors for the offshore terminal itself, but also such other considerations as distances to markets, availability of sites for storage or refining facilities, and routes for interconnecting pipelines. Past and continuing activities within the federal marine science and engineering program have provided much essential basic data for relevant studies.

The Corps of Engineers was authorized by Congress to conduct regional deepwater port studies on the North Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts to determine efficient, economic, and logical means of developing facilities to accommodate very large bulk cargo carriers. This authorization resulted from the growing concern over the adequacy of present U.S. harbor and channel facilities to accommodate the future needs of our waterborne commerce, much of which will be moving in these supersize ships.

Prior to the initiation in FY '72 of the regional deepwater port studies, the Corps of Engineers undertook two major research efforts to provide an overall appraisal of U.S. deepwater port needs. The first research, completed in December 1971, provided an assessment of foreign experience with deepwater port development. The second major research, completed in August 1972, examined the overall need for deepwater ports. It concentrated on identification of the factors critical to U.S. deepwater port decisions, on development of the engineering, economic, and environmental criteria appropriate to the evaluation of deepwater port policies, on analyses of the development options available at this time and the critical issues surrounding each, and on identification of the critical issues which need further analysis.

Interim reports for the regional deepwater port studies are nearing

completion and will be concerned with unique conditions in the respective regions under study. Each report will strive to achieve two common objectives:

(1) Demonstrate the net advantage or disadvantage to the employment of supership technology, and,

(2) In the event of adequate net advantage, identify the most likely or most feasible sites or locations for the employment of supership technology within the respective regions under study; or conversely, identify the most likely transportation system alternatives and associated problems in the absence of deepwater port facilities. The studies will evaluate the feasibility of possible sites along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts for three types of deepwater port facilities. Monobuoys, the least expensive type, provide single-point moorings and connections by hoses to submarine pipelines that lead to shore-based storage tanks. Ship handling problems are relatively simple. Far offshore, clusters or arrays of monobuoys may be located around a booster pumping station on a small platform. Mooring platforms are larger structures that keep ships in fixed positions during unloading, and from which oil is pumped to shore through submarine pipelines. They permit rapid and controlled transfer operations but require tugs to assist tanker berthing and possible curtailment of activities during rough seas. Artificial islands constitute the most elaborate and expensive offshore facilities but could serve a greater number of purposes, including space for storage tanks, employee housing, and possible recreation sites. The studies have also evaluated the alternative of dredging deeper channels in some of the regions.

Other Federal and state agencies, and industry, have contributed to coordinated studies with the Corps to establish the most feasible. solutions to the need for deepwater ports. The Maritime Administration has supported a study of concepts and potential sites for artificial islands along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The Coast Guard has undertaken analyses of the anticipated effects of deepwater ports and use of supertankers on management of vessel traffic, incidence of accidents, and control of potential oil spillage. The Department of the Interior assembled pertinent environmental, engineering, and operational data for offshore oil platforms and pipelines as a guide to the analysis of deepwater port impacts.

Results of studies undertaken for other purposes also proved to be useful. Studies of offshore airports, powerplants, and waste disposal, or of wave effects on offshore structures, have obvious relevance. Others, such as offshore cities, aquaculture, and seafloor habitation, may seem less pertinent but have led to results and interpretations that also apply to deepwater port considerations. Academic institutions, industry, and the public have also contributed to agency and interagency studies of deepwater port concepts. The Sea Grant Program of NOAA, under the guidance of the Council on Environmental Quality, supported investigations of potential environmental impacts of offshore terminals. With direct interest in constructing and using the offshore facilities, various

industry groups, especially those of the petroleum industry having extensive foreign experience, have made independent studies and contributed advice on all aspects of deepwater facilities. Oil industry groups are at present in advanced stages of planning for monobuoy facilities on the Gulf coast and elsewhere.

All of these efforts, together with appropriate inputs from an interagency group of legal experts and from the Council of Economic Advisers, were coordinated in a White House-sponsored study which resulted in the President's recent legislative proposal for Federal licensing of offshore deepwater ports beyond the jurisdiction of the states. The proposed legislation, which emphasizes environmental protection and requires compliance with applicable laws and regulations of adjacent coast states, is consistent with U.S. policies on law of the sea. The construction and operation of deepwater ports with appropriate safeguards is deemed to be a reasonable use of the high seas and not to imply national sovereignty in such areas.

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) includes a marine leg from Port Valdez, Alaska, to west coast ports, spanning the Gulf of Alaska. Port Valdez, an arm of Prince William Sound, was selected as the northern terminus of the marine leg because, in addition to the requisite deep water, its use is favored by predominantly low winds,

VALDEZ

SEATTLE
PORTLAND

SAN FRANCISCO

SANTA ANA WINDS

LOS ANGELES

The TAPS marine leg (dark area) is the focus of an important interagency effort to provide environmental information essential to the safe passage of the tankers carrying Alaskan oil to west coast ports.