Follow

Keep Up to Date with the Most Important News

By pressing the Subscribe button, you confirm that you have read and are agreeing to our Privacy Policy and Disclaimer
Alaska and Gulf of Mexico Experience Surge in Oil and Gas Leasing Alaska and Gulf of Mexico Experience Surge in Oil and Gas Leasing

Alaska and Gulf of Mexico Experience Surge in Oil and Gas Leasing

Oil and Gas Leasing Gets Boost in Alaska and the Gulf of America

The Department of Interior (DOI) is proposing to reopen up to 82%of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) to oil and gas leasing and has announced a lease sale in the Gulf of America (Mexico) for December 10 on about 80 million acres. The lease sale in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is the first of only three lease sales that the Biden administration put in its five-year plan, which has the fewest ever oil and gas auctions. The Gulf of America currently supplies 14% of domestically produced oil.

OTC Lease Sale

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will host Lease Sale 262, offering approximately 15,000 blocks located three to 231 miles offshore across the Western, Central, and Eastern Planning areas in the OCS. The blocks are located in water depths ranging from nine feet to more than 11,100 feet. BOEM is proposing a royalty rate of 16.66%, the minimum required by law and the lowest rate for deepwater since 2007. It will lower production costs for both shallow and deepwater leases and boost production. Biden’s oil and gas auctions had required drillers to pay 18.75% on the value of the oil produced in deep water.

The U.S. OCS in the Gulf spans approximately 160 million acres and is estimated to hold around 48 billion barrels of undiscovered, recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The BOEM is developing a new National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program that will include more lease sales than the three in the Biden plan.

Re-opening the NPR-A to oil & Gas Drilling

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released a draft environmental assessment for public comment, focused on maximizing Alaska’s resource potential. The assessment supports a new alternative to the 2020 plan, which could significantly increase the area available for oil and gas leasing. The Trump administration wants to restore oil and gas drilling on 13 million acres of the petroleum reserve that had been blocked by former President Biden.

The 23-million-acre area in Alaska was originally set aside by President Warren G. Harding as an emergency supply of oil for the Navy. During the 1970s energy crisis, Congress designated the NPR-A for oil and gas exploration, highlighting its importance to the national energy strategy. Managed by the BLM under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act, the reserve is subject to a mandate for competitive leasing while protecting key surface resources. The proposed plan is part of the Interior Department’s efforts to streamline regulations, promote energy production, and reverse the Biden administration’s 2024 rule that limited leasing in the reserve. The public has been invited to review and provide feedback on the draft analysis through the BLM National NEPA Register.

USGS Updates Its Resource Numbers

According to a new U.S. Geological Survey report, federally managed public onshore lands contain an estimated 29.4 billion barrels of oil and over 391.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as well as 8.4 billion barrels of natural gas liquids (NGLs). Half of the oil resources are located in Alaska, and another 30% in New Mexico, followed by about 5% in Nevada, with North Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming accounting for a combined 11%. The distribution of natural gas resources is similar, with Alaska (28%) and New Mexico (21%) dominating, followed by Colorado and Wyoming, each with about 15%, and by Texas, Utah, Montana, and Louisiana, which combined, had almost 14%. For NGLs, New Mexico is at the top with 46% of total estimated resources, followed by Wyoming with about 19%, Alaska at 11%, and Montana at 7%.

The report indicates a significant increase from the USGS’s last estimates in 1998 due to the inclusion of unconventional resources such as shale and tight gas. The findings support the growing role of hydraulic fracturing in expanding the U.S. energy potential. In 1998, the USGS estimated that federally managed public lands contained 7.86 billion barrels of oil and 201.1 trillion cubic feet of gas. The new numbers are much higher, by a factor of almost four for oil and a factor of almost two for natural gas — despite the United States consuming large quantities of oil and gas since then. The 1998 estimates focused on conventional oil and gas and did not include unconventional resources such as shale oil, tight oil and tight gas (oil and gas trapped in impermeable rock), and coal-bed gas, which are routinely produced using hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling.

Source: USGS

Conclusion

The Trump administration is pursuing additional oil and gas production in both Alaska and the Gulf of America. It is holding a lease sale on December 10 for 80 million acres in the Gulf of America. It is also reopening up to 82% of the NPR-A to oil and gas drilling, including areas that former President Biden had blocked from drilling. Alaska is rich in oil and gas resources, and the state wants to develop them to improve its economy. In its first update since 1998, the USGS has reported significant undiscovered oil, gas, and NGL reserves beneath U.S. federal lands, including the potential of both conventional and unconventional reservoirs, and has noted that half of the oil potential and over a quarter of the gas potential is located in Alaska.

Source link

Keep Up to Date with the Most Important News

By pressing the Subscribe button, you confirm that you have read and are agreeing to our Privacy Policy and Disclaimer