1984•OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information)Requires access
Gulf of Mexico summary report. Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico and their onshore impacts
C.W. Lynch, R.W. Rudolph
Open publisher page 0 citations
Abstract
The Gulf of Mexico continues to be the most developed Continental Shelf region in the US and the world. Statistics for the Gulf show that in 1983 the region accounted for 93.7% and 92.1% of domestic Federal offshore oil and gas production, respectively. While shallow water areas of the Continental Shelf of the Gulf have been responsible for most of this production, industry's interest recently has turned to the outer Shelf and upper Slope areas where new technologies in deepwater drilling will allow future production, assuming the resources are present. Between December 1982 and December 1983, the number of identified oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf increased from 537 to 572. This represents a net increase of 35 fields discovered in 1983, compared with 32 in 1982, with 23 in 1981, with 50 in 1980, with 51 in 1979, and with 25 in 1978. The number of active fields increased from 521 in 1982 to 556 in 1983, and fields for which reserve estimates have been made increased from 468 to 505. As of August 1, 1984, there had been 22,151 offshore oil and gas wells drilled in the federally regulated part of themore » Gulf of Mexico, the majority of them (19,371) off the coast of Louisiana. At that time there were also 3,155 active oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, of which 1,392 were producing. The record-setting Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 72 was the first areawide sale held in the region. In all, the first four areawide sales in the Gulf resulted in the leasing of more than 8 million acres in less than a year. The Gulf's offshore pipeline system consists of more than 14,600 miles of pipe. An impressive network of onshore support services and facilities has been established throughout the coastal zone adjacent to the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico Planning Areas to service both onshore and offshore oil and gas operations. 83 refs., 11 figs., 23 tabs.« less