US chemical leaders vow new natgas campaign

07 June 2007 21:03  [Source: ICIS news]

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, West Virginia (ICIS news)--US chemical industry leaders on Thursday promised a renewed and broad-based drive to free vast offshore natural gas reserves from 25-year-old congressional drilling bans.

Top industry officials, gathered for the annual American Chemistry Council (ACC) meeting, said they will press Congress anew to lift at least part of the quarter-century-old moratoria on drilling off the US east and west coasts, although they conceded they face stiff opposition.

US chemical manufacturers are almost wholly dependent on natural gas as a feedstock, and they have been lobbying Congress for more access to known US offshore and onshore reserves ever since gas prices began a three-fold increase in prices in 2000.

“The need for more domestic energy development is not just a chemicals industry issue;  it is a national issue, said Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive of Dow Chemical and ACC chairman.

Jack Gerard, president of the council, said a new, collective industry drive for more offshore access will begin soon. “You will see a change in our natural gas advocacy,” Gerard said. He said new offshore development legislation soon will be introduced in the US House by a broad coalition of members of Congress.

“You will see some new faces, some fresh faces among members of Congress who will be co-sponsoring this bill,” Gerard said. 

A new bipartisan offshore development bill was expected next week from Congressmen John Peterson (Republican-Pennsylvania) and Neil Abercrombie (Democrat-Hawaii).

Gerard said that a small offshore gas bill passed late last year by the then-Republican majority Congress was a modest first step but nonetheless represented a sea-change in what previously had been solid congressional opposition to further offshore energy development.

David Weidman, council vice chairman and president of Celanese, said that “The business of chemistry has been leading in this sea-change; our industry has been driving the coalition that has helped move this forward.”

Bob Wood, chairman of the council’s executive committee and president of Chemtura, said the industry must continue to press for offshore gas access. “If we don’t have a sensible energy policy, our chemical industry will be greatly diminished - and our legislators will have to deal with that.”

Gerard said it will be very difficult to get a new offshore gas bill through this Congress. “But there had been no change for 25 years until we made some progress last year,” he said, adding, “We will get more access this year or next, but we are going to stay on it, we are going to stay the course.”

By: Joe Kamalick
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