The Benefits of Leaving Oil and Gas Rigs Intact to Serve as Artificial Reefs
Figure 1: Juvenile and Adult French Angel, Large Populations of Obligatory Reef Fish from the Carribean Inhabit Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms
Figure 4a: The Diverse Invertebrate Community Attaching to the Subsurface Pilings May Possess Novel Compounds that Represent Potential Sources of Pharmaceutical Agents, Agricultural Chemicals, Food, Industrial Chemical Feedstocks, and Other Useful Products
Photographs by Toby Armstrong and Scott Porter. Photographs by Toby Armstrong and Scott Porter.
Figure 2: Juvenile Queen Angelfish, the Adults Broadcast Their Spawn into the Currents and the Larvae Settle on Platform Pilings
the platform structure is providing a nesting area for sergeant major (Abudefduf saxatilis). These platforms reside on thousands of square miles of featureless ocean floor absent of natural reefs. If the platforms are removed, the Caribbean coral reef community will be perish.
The Invertebrate Community Photographs by Toby Armstrong and Scott Porter.
Figure 3: Shows a Blue Male Sergeant Major (Abudefduf saxatilis) Exhibiting Nesting Behaviour Above the Nest (Brown Area)
The attraction versus production debate up to this point has been limited to the fish community. It is the central reason the scientific community allowed the removal of thousands of platforms, destroying millions of scleractinian corals, octocorals, hydrozoans, sponges, and bryozoans. One platform produces approximately one acre of surface area which is colonized by millions of attached invertebrates but also an equally large colony of motile invertebrates such as crabs, amphipods, sea spiders, and polychaetes. Due to the depletion of petroleum fields, by 2025, the majority of the structures in water depths less than 200 m will be removed. There are an estimated 1,900 hectares of coral reef habitat currently thriving on oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The attraction versus production debate fails to assess the coral reef community living on the structures.
Sustainable Fisheries
Offshore platforms could be used to cultivate marine organisms and could employ a number of fisheries applications such as fish hatcheries, culture of marine invertebrates, harvest of ornamental fish, oyster depuration, algae farms, recreational fishing and diving, culture of pharmaceutically valuable organisms, and many more. In additional to providing habitat for fish and invertebrates, retired structures could be used to support fish hatcheries which could be used to stock fish in sustainable fishing zones.15 The invertebrate, algal, and bacterial communities inhabiting the structures are known to possess bioactive compounds that can make a significant contribution to the health and nutrition industries16,17 Rouse 2009). The US Commission on Ocean Policy (2004)18
(Pomponi 1999, stated that the
Photographs by Toby Armstrong and Scott Porter.
The presence of thousands of adult and juvenile reef fish at a platform clearly indicates that the platforms are not attracting these organisms from natural reefs 50–100 km away but, rather, are producing these fish by supporting a reef ecosystem essential to their success. Figure 3 shows
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successful development of these organisms for bio-medical purposes could result in a multi-billion dollar industry. Some of the valuable compounds isolated from these species, has been shown to be highly effective in the treatment of certain types of cancer, occur in very low concentrations within their tissues. In addition, the bio-active molecules are so large and complex that it will be prohibitively expensive to synthesise and manufacture them, or even make functional derivatives in the laboratory
EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION – VOLUME 9 ISSUE 2
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