Deep sea drilling

Fossil Fuel Funeral

In memory of Fossil Fuels

Oil Free Otago Media Release 30 October 2015

Fossil Fuels are Dead – Long Live Renewables

Oil Free Otago friends and supporters are meeting this afternoon, Friday 30 October, to mourn the demise of the fossil fuel industry. “The time has come to face facts” Oil Free Otago’s Rosemary Penwarden said. “With vital signs so low, recovery really is out of the question. Fossil fuels are on the way out.”

A wake for Oil and Gas is being held outside the Scenic Hotel Southern Cross, 118 High Street, Dunedin, to coincide with the New Zealand Oil and Gas Investor briefing inside.

“We want to support New Zealand Oil and Gas investors.” Ms Penwarden said. “They must be feeling pretty bad right now with their share price so low. But it’s time for investors to face reality. The first stage of grief is always denial, so we are here to support them as they move to the next stage.

“Even Energy Minister Simon Bridges is calling for fossil fuel subsidies to be stopped.”

“A realistic carbon price is just around the corner, and fossil fuel companies are fast losing their social licence to operate.”

Fossil fuels lost the race with renewables in 2013 when 143 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity surpassed 141 gigawatts in fossil fuel-powered plants. By 2030 Bloomberg analysts predict there will be more than four times more renewable than fossil fuelled capacity, and by 2050 scientists warn that the world must have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

“NZ Oil and Gas investors should cut their losses and reinvest in a clean future.”

END

Letter to Shell: Now Stay Away From The Great South Basin

OFO ready response practice run 12 January 2014

Dear Shell NZ,
Yesterday Shell pulled out of drilling in the Arctic. This is such good news for millions of people worldwide. We have one planet and the race is on to save it. The people are winning.
We are writing to demand that you now cease any further plans to drill in the Great South Basin, off the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island.
Your industry is a rogue industry without the social licence to continue. Already discovered oil and gas must remain unburned for global warming to keep below an un-survivable tipping point. New frontier exploration must cease.
Like the Arctic, the deep ocean of the Great South Basin is frontier territory. Any hydrocarbon discoveries in this region are unburnable if we are to retain a liveable planet. You have no right to continue; your extreme destructive behaviour is putting us all at risk.
Remember the kayaktavists of Seattle? Be prepared for similar opposition in New Zealand. All further efforts to drill here will be strongly opposed.
Shell: pull out of the Great South Basin now, or expect resistance. The people are building a better, fairer world and we are winning. Get out of the way.
Yours sincerely
OIL FREE OTAGO

Wanganui Chronical: Many holes in Norway fairytale

6 April 2015

NEW ZEALAND OR NORWAY? Actually, it’s Fiordland, New Zealand. We may look similar, but we can never get rich through oil and gas exploration the way Norway did. PHOTO/DEREK ONLEY

WE COULD be like Norway, say oil industry proponents. Norway is rich because of oil and gas. If New Zealand wants a model from a similar-sized country, they say, it need look no further than Norway.

I’m reminded of a childhood fairy tale; remember the goose that laid the golden egg? Jack’s mother was aghast when he exchanged their cow for a few useless beans, but the beans were magic. After a number of near-misses, not without their health and safety risks, Jack got the goose, became wealthy beyond his wildest dreams and he and his mother got bigger digs and reportedly lived a happy, high-consumer lifestyle ever after.

Simon Bridges thinks oil and gas are going to be New Zealand’s golden goose, the way it was for Norway.

But he’s too late. Back in the 1970s the Norwegian Government made a calculated decision to tax the oil companies at 90 per cent. To their surprise, the companies paid the high taxes and kept coming. Norway got rich.

Norway still charge one of the highest tax rates, around 78 per cent, while New Zealand charges oil companies 42 per cent tax – one of the lowest tax takes in the world.

What Norway did in the 1970s is impossible to achieve today. Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries still have large reserves of “easy” oil. Their production is not at full capacity, so they still have the ability to influence world oil prices. Ramping up Middle East production volumes can bring prices down and make unconventional and marginal oil production uneconomic. This is far from the full explanation of the current oil price crash, but it’s been cited as a part of the puzzle.

Even before the 50 per cent drop in Brent Crude (the North Sea oil pricing benchmark), no oil company today could afford the royalties/taxes that Norway demanded back then. For deep sea drilling in New Zealand, described by the industry as a “frontier” region, margins are tight.

Back in Norway, it’s not all golden eggs. At current prices, more than half the offshore fields being developed along the Norwegian continental shelf are uneconomic [1].

In the past six months Norway’s kroner has dropped 20 per cent against the dollar. Norway’s partially state-owned oil companies Statoil and its service companies have cut thousands of jobs, and Norwegian unions are calling for government measures to protect the industry [2].

The fairy tale is ending, but Hilde Opoku of Norway’s Green Party says Norwegians are still blind to the coming change. “When we wake up from this oil bubble,” he said, “we will realise we will never have a fairy tale like this again.”

No one will. Climate change now dictates our future, a future where, if we are to keep global warming to the agreed 2C limit, most of our known reserves of oil and gas cannot be burned. Why on earth are we looking for more? Oil and gas will never be New Zealand’s golden goose. It’s time to stop believing in fairy tales.

References:

1) http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/oil-price-plunge-leads-to-lifestyle-shift-in-norway-1.2250550

2) /www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-08/norway-on-alert-as-oil-losses-have-government-exploring-options.html

-Rosemary Penwarden is a freelance writer and member of several environmental and climate justice groups. In between projects, she divides her time between her 3-year-old grandson and elderly mother.

– Wanganui Chronicle

By Rosemary Penwarden

BLOCK OFFER 2015: MORE OF OUR SEAS FOR SALE

Oil Free Otago Press Release

30 MAR 2015
BLOCK OFFER 2015: MORE OF OUR SEAS FOR SALE

At midday today Oil Free Otago will be at the office of Dunedin North MP Michael Woodhouse to deliver a message to his government.“Today this National Government are again offering our Seas for Sale to foreign oil companies to explore for more oil and gas” said Oil Free Otago spokesperson Rosemary Penwarden, “despite the fact that we can’t burn most of the already discovered fossil fuels and keep to the two degree global warming limit that this government agreed to at Copenhagen.”

This morning Energy Minister Simon Bridges announced its 2015 Block Offer to oil companies at the Advantage NZ Petroleum Summit, Sky City Casino, Auckland.

Oil Free Otago’s protest is one of several around the country recently . Last week ANZ bank was targeted in three cities, including Dunedin, for sponsoring the petroleum Summit.

Yesterday thousands of people marched in Auckland against the government’s agenda of drilling for more deep sea oil and gas.

This morning Petroleum conference attendees were confronted with activists holding up mural-sized photographs depicting the human and animal suffering of climate-related crises.

“We have a question for our local National Party MP, Michael Woodhouse” said Ms Penwarden. “The science is clear. What doesn’t his government get about climate change?”

“This National Government are stuck in last century’s polluting fossil fuel energy policies just when we need to urgently move to a clean energy low carbon energy policy. They have no regard for securing a stable, liveable climate for our children’s future, or that of all living creatures.”

“Fossil Fuels are not our future. We will not stand by while this government continues to put our planet at risk.”
ENDS

Contact
Oil Free Otago
oilfreeotago@gmail.com

ANZ STOP FUNDIN DEEP SEA DRILLING

Oil Free Otago Press Release

24 MAR 2015
ANZ STOP FUNDING DEEP SEA DRILLING

Today Oil Free Otago and 350.org will be at the ANZ bank, 71 George St, to present a letter to the manager asking ANZ to stop sponsoring deep sea drilling.“ANZ is using its customers’ money to sponsor deep sea drilling” said Oil Free Otago spokesperson Rosemary Penwarden.ANZ bank is sponsoring the Advantage New Zealand Petroleum Summit, to be held at Sky City at the end of March, where Energy Minister Simon Bridges will launch the 2015 Block Offer.

This is the third time ANZ has been targeted this week. ANZ Christchurch was yesterday visited by climate activists holding banners and demanding ANZ stop sponsoring the Petroleum Summit. In Auckland, helium-filled black balloons werereleased inside the bank. Stranded against the bank’s ceiling they represented carbon bubbles; future stranded assets of the fossil fuel industry.

“Scientists say we cannot burn most of the already discovered oil, gas and coal and still keep global warming to two degrees” said Ms Penwarden “yet ANZ is using our money to help the petroleum industry look for more! ANZ is sponsoring climate change.”

“ANZ say they are responding to climate change because it poses serious risks to the environment, to the economy and to their clients. But to the oil industry ANZ say they are committed to supporting deep sea drilling. They can’t have it both ways.”

“We are calling on the ANZ Bank NOT to sponsor the NZ Petroleum Summit. We are calling on ANZ to divest from fossil fuels. It’s their customers’ money, so customers have a say in how their banks shape our future. ANZ: stop sponsoring climate change.”
ENDS

Contacts

350@350.org.nz

OilFreeOtago@gmail.com

Seismic Vessel birthed at Dunedin – 3 Feb 2015

Oil Free Otago Press Release

3 FEB 2015
SEISMIC VESSEL PROTEST DUNEDIN PORT

Oil Free Otago say NO to Seismic Ocean Blasting – POLARCUS GO AWAY

Oil Free Otago are this morning at the Fryatt St wharf to give Anadarko and New Zealand Oil and Gas’s hired gun, the seismic vessel Polarcus Naila, an UNWELCOME.

“We here to stand up for the marine mammals” said OFO spokesperson Annabeth Cohen. “Almost half of the marine mammal species in the whole world are here off our southern coast. They are at risk. We say to Polarcus GO AWAY, YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE”

Anadarko has contracted the Polarcus Naila to carry out seismic ocean blasting over the next four weeks in the Canterbury Basin, near their exploratory drill site. New Zealand Oil and Gas have contracted the same vessel to do even more seismic blasting in the Great South Basin.

Oil Free Otago are calling for the precautionary approach, for the sake of our ocean wildlife. “We are only just beginning to understand the damage this ocean blasting is doing. It is not up to us to prove damage – it is up to the industry to prove they are not doing harm. They have not done so” said Ms Cohen.

“Anadarko and NZOG are looking for more oil and gas that we can’t burn if the planet is to stay below two degrees of global warming – and they are harming our precious marine mammals in the process. We don’t want this destructive industry here. We will oppose it every step of the way. Instead we want a clean green future for our city.”
ENDS

Contact
OilFreeOtago@gmail.com

198 Nonviolent Direct Action Ideas for Summer

198 Nonviolent Direct Action ideas to wet your activist whistle this summer!

Public Lecture: Climate Change & Communities

Drs Andy Reisinger and Judy Lawrence present: The latest climate change assessments: What do they mean for our communities?

Monday 16 June 2 – 3 pm at Otago University Burns 2 Lecture Theatre, Arts Building, Dunedin Campus

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released its Fifth Assessment reports on the science, the impacts, adaptaion and vulnerability, and mitigation. Andy Reisinger, co-ordinating lead author of the Working Group II Australasia chapter and Judy Lawrence, NZ Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University, Wellington, will talk about what these new reports mean for us all.

Prof Bob Lloyd’s Message to Anadarko, OFO Flotilla 2014-02-09

Professor Bob Lloyd is the Director of Energy Studies in the University of Otago’s Physics Department. In this clip he challenges Anadarko’s ship the Noble Bob Douglas as it arrives to a deep-sea-drilling site off the coast of Otago. Professor Bob Lloyd is a world-class leader in the academic community who investigates the science of climate change. Here he stresses the urgency to stop the expansion of marginal fossil fuels, and why community leaders, like himself, are stepping up and saying “enough is enough”.