ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING FOR OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS 



PREFACE 



This report is presented in two parts. Part 1 introduces the 

 offshore oil and gas industry, starting with the demand for energy and 

 available resources and leading to the current national program to 

 develop offshore oil and gas. Part 2 discusses the specific offshore 

 and onshore activities involved in the recovery of offshore oil and gas, 

 and describes in detail each of fifteen major development phases along 

 with related activities and facilities. For each activity/facility 

 development type the site requirements are described, along with con- 

 struction and operation, community factors, effects on living resources, 

 and regulatory factors. The report gives particular attention to the 

 strategies the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) industries use in making 

 investment, location, and timing decisions. 



While the goal of the whole OCS project is to provide a basis for 

 assessing the broadest range of direct and induced impacts on resources 

 within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Volume I 

 is mainly concerned with physical description of offshore oil and gas 

 development activities as (1) a direct cause of impacts offshore and 

 (2) a generator of indirect impacts inshore and onshore . 



The report discusses where the oil industry's activities are 

 currently located, where future efforts are planned, where known natural 

 resources are located, where the most promising new fields may be found, 

 where seismic surveying operations are currently focused, where drilling 

 is anticipated, and where pipelines, transshipment terminals and refineries 

 are being planned and built. The extent to which the United States will 

 depend on imported products and where and how these products will enter 

 the United States are briefly discussed. 



The information in this report was collected from a wide variety of 

 sources: the coastal document center of The Conservation Foundation; 

 other libraries and relevant literature sources; unpublished files; data 

 exchange with other ongoing OCS studies; and interviews and direct field 

 observations. To the extent possible, the information is current to 

 mid-year 1976. 



