NEWS
Major Offshore Lease Plan Announced
Seccretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced a major initiative to boost oil and natural gas production on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska. The program could produce 10 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cu. ft. of natural gas over 40 years, generating almost $170 billion. "The Outer Continental Shelf is a vital source of domestic oil and natural gas for America, especially in light of sharply rising energy prices and increasing demand for these resources," Kempthorne said. Interior's Minerals Management Service developed the initiative, known as the Five Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, to guide domestic energy leasing on the OCS from 2007 to 2012. The program proposes 21 lease sales in eight planning areas. Twelve sales are slated for the Gulf of Mexico, 8 off of Alaska and, at the request of the Commonwealth of Virginia, one in the Mid-Atlantic Planning Area, about 50 miles off the coast of southern Virginia. Kempthorne said that revenues from OCS energy production are shared with coastal states adjacent to OCS energy production. "This proposal will provide hundreds of millions of dollars of new revenue for states to pay for roads, bridges, environmental restoration and other critical needs," he said. "Outer Continental Shelf energy revenues also support historic preservation and environmental conservation projects in all states through the Historic Preservation Fund and Land and Water Conservation Fund." Offshore energy production is one of the largest sources of non-tax revenue for the federal government; the new program will generate billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury. "We consulted extensively with Members of Congress, state, local and tribal officials, industry, environmental organizations and received comment from more than a hundred thousand interested citizens," Kempthorne said. "This program gives great weight to the desires of coastal states regarding oil and gas development near their shores and environmentally sensitive areas were removed from proposed lease sales." There is no leasing proposed within 125 miles of the Florida coast or east of the military mission line in the Eastern Gulf. The program includes a Central Gulf sale in 2007 that involves a portion of the Sale 181 area and, as mandated by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, one lease sale in the Eastern Gulf in 2008. The Act, signed by President George W. Bush on December 20, 2006, requires oil and gas leasing in a portion of the area known as the "Sale 181 Area," consisting of 2,574,823 million acres, of which 2,028,730 is in the Central Gulf and about 546,093 acres is in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico Planning Area. The proposed sale area "181 South" consists of 5,762,620 acres. The total of new areas in the Gulf offered under the proposed program is 8,337,443 acres. The leasing program schedules eight sales in Alaska: two in the Beaufort Sea; three in the Chukchi Sea; up to two in Cook Inlet; and one in the North Aleutian Basin - in an area of about 5.6 million acres that was previously offered during Lease Sale 92 in 1985. There are currently no existing leases in the North Aleutian Basin. These areas would be subject to
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May, 2007 · MarineNews · 7
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