Energy: Pumping Fuel Under Water

As onshore deposits of natural gas are slowly pumped dry, output from underwater wells becomes ever more important. Some 160 offshore rigs, or a third of all those operating throughout the world, are now drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Last week TIME Correspondent George Taber visited several. His report:

From a helicopter whirling 1,000 ft. overhead, the gas and oil rigs look like pieces of some monster Erector Set. Giant beams crisscross to form towers rising 23 stories above the waves. In the swampy bayous near the coast, production and drilling equipment stands in tight clusters at the older drilling sites. But as the mud-brown waters turn to green and finally blue, the rigs thin out; the most remote are exploring for gas 110 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Some offshore rigs are pushing their steel drilling bits down through 1,800 ft. of water and then through 23,000 ft. of mud, shale and rock.

Life for the roughly 60 men aboard each drilling rig is a strict routine of twelve hours on duty and twelve off during seven days at sea. The center of the rig’s activities is the mud-slicked drill floor, where half a dozen roughnecks struggle day and night with heavy chains and power-driven winches to shove 90-ft.-long pieces of drill pipe into the narrow hole. During the twelve hours off, the roustabouts spend most of their time sleeping, although they can also fish for baby sharks and sand trout or watch the latest porno movie on closed-circuit television. After each 84-hour work week, the crew is ferried to shore for a week’s vacation. Pay for a novice can reach $10,000 for six months on the rig.

Art, Not Science. Last year 5,500 wells in the Gulf of Mexico produced 14% of all the gas burned in the U.S. By 1985 they should be pumping 30%. Moreover, nearly all production in the crescent-shaped gulf is on 7.8 million acres leased to energy companies by the Federal Government. Under terms of the leases, the gas must flow into interstate pipelines that take it to the Midwest or Northeast, rather than remain in Texas or Louisiana, as does so much gas pumped out of privately owned onshore land.

But underwater exploration for oil or gas is still more of an art than a science. Only one-third of all wells dug in the gulf are now producing; Exxon, Mobil, Champlin and others have spent more than $1.5 billion exploring off Pensacola, Fla., without discovering anything except salt water. Worse, federal investigators suspect that gulf producers in recent years have been purposely holding back production in hopes that federal price controls will be removed and the gas will eventually sell for $2 or more per 1,000 cu. ft., rather than the present top interstate price of $ 1.44.

Such charges stir hurricanes of protest on the rigs. Says Pat Byler, production foreman at Shell’s Vermilion Block 22 field, six miles off Louisiana: “My blood pressure goes up when I hear them talk about withholding.” Nonetheless, gasmen privately concede that investigators from Washington will uncover a few examples of withholding.

The Easy Way. The easiest way to hold back gas would be to delay final exploration. Once a producer buys a lease, he quickly drills a wildcat well to see how much oil or gas, if any, lies below the seabed. This exploratory hole, though, is always plugged up, and it may be several years before further holes are dug and production is started. There are at least 62 fields in the gulf where gas or oil has been discovered but where production has been delayed. Companies say that the holdup is caused by problems in obtaining drilling equipment.

Another way of holding back gas is to shut down wells for repairs. As many as 25 wells will reach down from a single producing platform in the gulf. As a safety precaution, producers usually shut down all wells on a platform when there is a serious problem in any one of them. Federal officials suspect that some producers may have been taking advantage of minor problems to close down their entire production. How serious withholding might be cannot now be determined, but it is apparent that producers face a task even more difficult than finding gas 25,000 ft. under the whitecaps: convincing investigators that hidden gas is not among the secrets of the deep.