The US will allow oil and gas to 300 thousand square kilometers of continental shelf
The United States has decided to lease for oil and gas the first portion of the federally owned parcel shelf in the Gulf of Mexico with a total area of approximately 295 thousand square kilometers.
The Ministry of internal Affairs of the United States announced plans to lease for the development of large areas of oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico. As stated in the Agency issued a press release, the total area of the proposed lease parcels will leave 73 million acres, which is 295,4 thousand sq. km.
The sites are located along the coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida
“The opening of a large number of Federal lands and waters for drilling oil and gas wells is one of the cornerstones of President Donald trump, who will make the U.S. energy independent power” — leads the press service quoted the head office of Ryan Zinke.
As a result of development of new deposits, States will have from 0.2 to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and up to 118 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The lease area is planned for August 16
All authorities will offer rent 13 725 plots in Federal ownership located at a distance of up to 230 miles from shore and at depths from three to 3,400 meters.
Renting these sites will be the first stage of a larger program on the development of the continental shelf calculated for the years 2017-2022. It is planned to conduct ten campaigns on lease sites in the Gulf of Mexico, two in a year.
The previous Obama administration has actively restricted drilling on Federal lands. One of the key campaign promises of Donald trump referred to the easing of regulation of the energy sector. Trump promised to allow exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons over a larger area of the Federal land and water areas and to simplify obtaining permits for new energy projects.
“The energy I’ll cancel the restrictions on American energy production, destroying jobs,” — stated in the plan of trump’s first hundred days in the White house.
In February 2017, the newspaper “Kommersant” reported that the company “Rosneft” is exploring the conditions of competition on the development of sites on the shallow shelf of Mexico. According to the publication, the consortium for the exploration of “Rosneft” can enter together with ExxonMobil. Because of the sanctions Rosneft will not be able to fight for the deep shelf, and land plots, the company was not interested, learned newspaper.