MMS ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAM:  ONGOING STUDIES

MMS OCS Region:

Gulf of Mexico

Title:

Demographic Consequences of the Offshore Petroleum Industry (GM-03-04)

Planning Area:

Gulfwide

Total Cost:  $300,000

Period of Performance:  FY 2003 - 2007

Conducting Organization:

Impact Assessment, Inc.

MMS Contact:

Dr. Harry Luton

Description:

Background:  The analysis of demographic effects are important to social impact assessment (SIA), leading to issues of growth and decline, benefits and burdens, social change and conflict.  The petroleum industry has affected Texas and Louisiana demographics directly, and indirectly as a catalyst for other changes.  The industry’s consequences have been significant, their characteristics, magnitude, and distribution have changed over time.  Fabrication, exploration and production all have effects on employment that could lead to in-migration (or reduce out-migration).  The relationship between migration and age is well documented, and migration-induced age-structure changes are likely to be associated with other correlates of the age structure.  SIA commonly addresses large new projects in small communities.  New labor demand, particularly during construction, induces immigration which causes other socioeconomic effects.  However, the demographic effects that MMS must address are not short-term, project-related, or localized.  They come on the heels of 100 years of petroleum industry activity and 50 years of activity offshore.  Projects are familiar, local labor is poised to meet the demand, and each project blends into the next.  These effects are from the routine operations of varied oil-related enterprises rather than from the concentrated activities of the construction trades.  The customary SIA emphasis on boomtowns also does not fit the current situation well.  The offshore industry has produced economic booms and busts but few boomtowns.  In sum, the demographic consequences of the petroleum industry and the offshore petroleum industry are not well documented.

Objectives:  The objectives of the study are: 

  • to provide a coherent description of such changes in demographic effects through time and the reasons behind these changes through the analysis of a coherent set of research questions as defined by the research design;

  • to provide a general understanding of the industry’s demographic effects and causes of those effects over time.  As the industry and society have evolved, these effects have changed.  For example, while early onshore hydrocarbon discoveries often led to localized “boomtowns,” the recent large discoveries in deepwater have not;

  • to provide a general understanding of variation (state and sub-state) in those effects and the causes of this variation.  For example, the demographic consequences of the 1980s oil price collapse were different for Texas than for Louisiana.  MMS seeks a coherent description of the reasons behind such variation; and

  • to provide a differentiated and well documented data system that would allow a continuous monitoring of demographic changes in the future.

Methods:  The Contractor is responsible for providing a final research plan that balances study resources and data availability against the many and complex questions that are raised by the study objectives (above).

Products:  Annotated bibliographies, volume 1 and 2 final report.

Importance to MMS:  The MMS seeks an assessment for Texas and Louisiana of the petroleum industry’s demographic effects that will be used to:  (1) reassess the Agency’s impact assessment strategies to better reflect Gulf Region realities, (2) improve its assessments of cumulative effects, (3) support a more comprehensive analyses of current effects, and (4) refine the Agency’s projections of sale-level effects.

Current Status:  A completed draft report has been received and is under review.  The project was delayed due to MMS review.

Final Report Due:

September 2008

Publications:

None

Affiliated WWW Sites:

None

Revised date:

March 2008

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