US Gulf offshore oil : petroleum leasing and taxation and their impact on industry structure, competition, production and fiscal revenues

The Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the US Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is the most explored, drilled and extensively developed offshore petroleum province in the world. Since 1953 and up to 2000 inclusive, more than 35 thousand wells have been drilled offshore in GOM (including wells plugged and abandoned). Cumulative production of oil and gas to this date stands at 13 billion barrels of oil and 146 tcf of gas (9.7 per cent and 17.5 per cent, respectively, of cumulative US production to date since 1953). The prominence of this region as far as the US petroleum supply picture is concerned has grown markedly over the years, on the back of the output decline in traditional onshore basins (Figure F1.1). Currently, there are 39 million acres under lease in GOM, with 1585 producing leases and 4034 active production platforms tapping 662 active fields whose reserves represent around 13 per cent of the US total. GOM production already exceeds that of Texas (on an oil equivalent basis) and, in coming years, its crude oil output is bound to eclipse even that of Alaska (unless significant production occurs in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). Indeed, the prediction of some observers that GOM output will be responsible for as much as one third of US crude oil production by 2010 could turn out to be conservative