It's Our Energy Pearl Harbor Matt Simmons

by Nichole Williamson, Assistant Editor, MarEx

Today, Tony Munoz, Editor-in-chief of MarEx and I had the pleasure of attending a speech given by Matt Simmons at the 7th Annual Energy Ocean International Conference, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Mr. Simmons is the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute and is Chairman Emeritus of Simmons & Company International, one of the world’s largest investment banking firms. He now serves on the Board of Trustees for the Ocean Energy Institute, a non-profit research institute dedicated to development of ocean energy in all forms with a focus on offshore wind energy.

As a well-known and respected oil industry executive and author of the book Twilight in the Desert: the Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, Mr. Simmons drew quite a crowd this afternoon. He spoke about the oil spill in the gulf saying, “It is the greatest human tragedy we’ve ever had. It is our Energy Pearl Harbor.” The oil spill must be attended to with the same “intensity” as was used by the U.S. in WWII after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He says that BP has given us nothing but bad information about this disaster from the very conservative BP report of 1,000 barrels leaking a day to the release of the video that they say is the leaking oil. Simmons claims there is a different source of the leak and the video being released to the media is just a 4-foot oil plume, which is much too small to cause such a massive oil slick.

NOAA ship the “Thomas Jefferson,” a technologically advanced ship used for mapping the ocean floor, has found a 400 foot lake of heavy oil sitting at the ocean floor. Mr. Simmons warned, with so much oil in the gulf (what he believes has been 120,000 barrels a day) a hurricane will spread oil over the entire gulf coast. Matt Simmons doesn’t hide his dislike for BP, calling them one of the worst run companies, who he believes will likely have to file Chapter 11 in the next few weeks. A company so horribly run, it thought they could be “self-insured,” which is a relief to the insurance industry.

MarEx asked Mr. Simmons what the repercussions would be for Transocean, to which he responded “Transocean is clean as a whistle on this.” BP will bear the full brunt of the damages. Simmons reminded the crowd, the 11 men who lost their lives were Transocean employees and BP may face manslaughter charges for their deaths as well. He also mentioned the story of a Transocean worker, Jason Anderson, who told his wife he was concerned about safety on the rig and that BP was straying from procedures to finish the well more quickly. Jason took out a will and for four days had long talks with his wife about how to raise their children before returning to the rig. Jason was one of the eleven to lose his life in the explosion on April 20th.

To refocus on the Energy Ocean Conference, Mr. Simmons predicts a massive fuel shortage in the near future and cites ocean energy as the last frontier. He says the U.S. Government needs to endorse Ocean Energy to put it into action.