BOEM announces proposed Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leasing program for 2012-2017

Offshore staff

WASHINGTON, DC – The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has announced its proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas leasing program for 2012–2017.

The plan focuses on exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, proposes three auctions in the Arctic, and rules out development in unexplored areas along the Atlantic coast. In all, the Interior Department is paving the way for 15 lease sales in six offshore areas, including the eastern Gulf of Mexico, near an area where development is currently off limits under a federal ban.

Oil and gas companies would also have the chance to bid on drilling rights for Arctic waters near Alaska, including the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, as well as the Cook Inlet.

But the federal government is ruling out drilling along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts — including an area near Virginia that had been slated for exploration under the Bush administration. The Interior Department still plans to permit energy companies to conduct seismic research along the mid-to-south-Atlantic to help identify hidden pockets of oil and gas in the region.

The proposed program includes 15 lease sales in six offshore areas where there are currently active leases and exploration and where there is known or anticipated hydrocarbon potential. This strategy makes more than 75% of the undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources estimated on the OCS available for development.

The following sales are included in the proposed program: 
* Western Gulf of Mexico: Five annual area-wide lease sales beginning in the fall of 2012 that
make available all unleased acreage. 
* Central Gulf of Mexico: Five annual areawide lease sales beginning in the spring of 2013 that
make available all unleased acreage. 
* Eastern Gulf of Mexico: Two sales, in 2014 and 2016, in areas of the Eastern Gulf that are not currently under congressional moratorium. 
* Beaufort Sea: One sale in 2015 with time to learn from any interim exploration and further
analyze environmental issues, subsistence use needs, and infrastructure capabilities – so that the
lease sale can be tailored to balance these issues. 
* Chukchi Sea: One sale in 2016, with time to learn from any interim exploration and further
analyze environmental issues, subsistence use needs, and infrastructure capabilities – so that the
lease sale can be tailored to balance these issues. 
* Cook Inlet: One special interest sale including the entire planning area, which is initially scheduled for 2013, but may be moved to later in the program depending on industry interest in the sale.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar offered the new proposal as an expansion of “safe and responsible oil and gas production from the outer continental shelf” that would “help us continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” He stressed that the program would make available more than 75% of the oil and gas resources that the government estimates are lurking under the outer continental shelf and is viewed as technically recoverable.

The BOEM says that the proposed program is consistent with the Obama administration’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, which aims to promote domestic energy security and reduce oil imports by a third by 2025 through a comprehensive national energy policy. It also added that the program has been informed by lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and that reforms that have been implemented to make offshore drilling safer and more environmentally responsible.

11/08/2011