Guest “First, the good news” by David Middleton
JUNE 21, 2022
EIA expects nine new Gulf of Mexico natural gas and crude oil fields to start in 2022In our June 2022 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast that new fields coming online in 2022 will account for 5% of natural gas production and 14% of crude oil production in the U.S. Federal Offshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM) by the end of 2023. We expect that GOM natural gas production will average 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2023, down 0.1 Bcf/d from 2022. We expect that GOM crude oil production will average 1.8 million barrels per day (MMb/d) in 2023, about the same as in 2022. Currently, no GOM fields are scheduled to start up in 2023.
During 2021, 15% of all U.S. crude oil production was produced in the GOM, and 2% of U.S. natural gas production was produced there. In our STEO, we forecast that eight new fields in the GOM will produce both oil and natural gas by year-end, based partly on data from Rystad Energy. We expect a ninth field, which will produce only crude oil, to start in 2022.
We expect that the additional capacity will not quite sustain crude oil production at levels similar to the end of 2021. The additional capacity from these new fields will not increase natural gas or crude oil production in the GOM. We expect GOM natural gas production to continue its three-year decline; annual GOM production last rose in 2019. Declining production from existing GOM fields is greater than the increase in production from new fields for natural gas and is equal for crude oil.
Since the late 1990s, new development in the GOM has been targeting oil-bearing reservoirs. Today, most of the natural gas produced in the GOM comes from associated-dissolved natural gas production in oil fields instead of natural gas fields. In 2020, gross withdrawals of natural gas in the GOM that came from natural gas wells accounted for less than 30% of total GOM natural gas production, compared with 76% in 1999.
We expect the large development fields of Argos, King’s Quay, and Vito to begin production in 2022. Each has a peak production capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBOE/d) or more, and each is the result of a focused effort to lower the costs of field developments. Offshore producers have made significant progress simplifying and standardizing floating production systems and collaborating with various partners, including overseas construction services companies, to reduce total costs and remain competitive with onshore producers.
However, fields expected to start in 2022 may shift into our 2023 forecast if their start-up dates are pushed back. In addition, fields expected to start in 2024 could begin earlier, resulting in changes to our initial production forecasts.
Principal contributors: James Easton, Kirby Lawrence, Jim O’Sullivan
Tags: forecasts/projections, natural gas, STEO (Short-Term Energy Outlook), liquid fuels, crude oil, oil/petroleum, Gulf of Mexico, map
EIA
Despite the extensive production outages due to the 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons, Gulf of Mexico (GOM) oil production is forecast to once again approach 2 million bbl/d by late 2022, averaging 1.8 million bbl/d in 2023.
All of these new oil & gas fields are in deepwater.
The King’s Quay facility, on Green Canyon Block 433 (GC 433) will be operated by Murphy Oil Corporation. The King’s Quay floating production system (FPS) will be installed in a water depth of about 3,500′. Several subsalt Miocene discoveries on the surrounding blocks will be developed as subsea tiebacks to the facility, which can process up to 80,000 bbl/d of oil and 100 million mcf/d of natural gas.
The initial discovery well was drilled on GC 432 in 2009. The block was leased in 2006. Anadarko, Murphy & Samson won it with their bid of $105.6 million. The lease had a primary term of 10 years and would have expired in 2016; however, Murphy and their subsequent partners were able to hold the lease by continuously conducting operations, drilling delineation wells through 2021. The partnership leased GC 433 and several surrounding blocks in 2015, 2018 and 2020. It takes time to discover, delineate, make a final investment decision (FID) and develop deepwater oil fields. Despite the Obama maladministration’s shortening the primary terms of deepwater leases to 7 from 10 years, the partnership was able to assemble the components of this field because there were “regular and predictable lease sales.”
Now for the bad news
When Brandon was campaigning from his basement, he promised to halt all offshore drilling and leasing. In reaction to this, the National Offshore Industries Association (NOIA) prepared a report, projecting two scenarios: 1) Halting the permitting of new wells on existing leases; 2) Halting new lease sales after the end of the current five year program (2017-2022).
Since occupying the White House, Brandon did not manage to carry out the first promise. If the government had halted permitting of operations on existing leases, they would have gotten their @$$es sued off.
However, the Brandon Maladministration has been worse than expected in the area of lease sales.
Impact of a Potential Leasing Ban
NOIA
Although no firm policy proposals have been advanced, one of a number of potential restrictive policy changes that has been discussed related to Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas activities has been an end to new leasing in the Federal Outer Continental Shelf. For the purpose of this report, a “No Leasing Scenario” was developed to provide a comparison of activity levels (project executions, spending, oil and natural gas production), economic impacts, and government revenues to the Base Case Scenario. This scenario assumes that no new lease sales would be held from 2022, but that existing leases would be unaffected, and that no other major policy or regulatory changes impacting the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and natural gas industry would be enacted.
They didn’t wait for the 2017-2022 program to end. One of Brandon’s first acts of malfeasance was to issue an unlawful executive order pausing all lease sales. They grudgingly held Lease Sale 257 in November 2021 to avoid being held in contempt of court. However, a corrupt Obama judge nullified that sale… because climate change. They have subsequently, unlawfully cancelled all remaining sales in the 2017-2022 program. We have now gone two years without Gulf of Mexico lease sales, and will likely see at least a four year hiatus.
In addition to unlawfully cancelling the remaining sales in the 2017-2022 program, they have yet to issue a new five year plan, despite a legal requirement to do so. In 2018, the Trump administration did issue a first draft of a 2019-2024 program, revising the last two years of the Obama-era 2017-2022 plan, and extending through 2024.
The Trump Administration DPP proposed a total of 47 lease sales during the 2019-2024 period: 12 in the Gulf of Mexico region, 19 in the Alaska region, 9 in the Atlantic region, and 7 in the Pacific region.8 By comparison, the 2017-2022 program that is currently in force contains a total of 11 OCS lease sales during the five-year period: 10 in the Gulf of Mexico region, 1 in the Cook Inlet planning area of the Alaska region, and none in the Atlantic or Pacific regions.
Congressional Research Service
Too bad they didn’t complete that plan… However, the Brandon maladministration could have simply unlawfully cancelled those 47 lease sales just as easily as the 4 that they did cancel.
With a 5-year program, the Gulf of Mexico is projected to produce an average of 2.6 million barrels (BOE) per day of oil and natural gas from 2022 – 2040. A delay in the program will mean nearly 500,000 barrels (BOE) per day less over that time period.
In 2036, the lost Gulf of Mexico production could mean 885,000 fewer barrels of oil and natural gas per day – a 33% decrease from where we’d be with a 5-year program in place.
API Fact Sheet
The NOIA report was published in May 2020, before the bad hurricane seasons of 2020-2021 and before Brandon’s disastrous first two years of vacationing in Delaware. With a schedule of “regular and predictable lease sales,” the report forecast GOM production exceeding 2 million bbl/d in 2023 and eventually peaking at ~2.4 million bbl/d in the early 2030’s.
Here is the EIA graph overlaid on the NOIA graph:
While it’s impossible to break out the hurricane damage from the Brandon damage at this point in time, we do have a clear example of hurricane and political damage to GOM oil production in the fairly recent past. In August 2020, hurricanes curtailed about 450,000 bbl/d of oil production:
Super Storm Obama curtailed about 500,000 bbl/d from 2011-2013.
Mega-Apocalypse-Ginormous-Super Storm Brandon seems intent on causing even more damage.
Good report on the Brandon disaster, David. Some persons might not be familiar with the lead times needed to set up large natural resource projects, and then you add substantial, but uncertain, risk into the project and the projects slow down for longer than just a missed lease sale. The damage Brandon is doing to the US will not end this November, it will take some years to correct, presuming the correct administration enters the scene.
If we can survive that long. Brandon’s already putting this year’s crop in jeopardy. If diesel gets really short or really expensive, it may not be worth bringing the stuff in from the field. Without a massive crop selling at record prices, farmers are looking at massive debt and Spring 2023 is going to look like something out of the dust bowl from the farm output perspective.
They’ll tell us the famine will be transitory.
Farmers don’t need fossil fuels. They can go out and buy those electric combine harvesters, tractors, and manure spreaders. (sarc)
Its a bit worse than that. Drilling rigs are very expensive and no one will have them sit idle for four years – the rigs will move elsewhere and the cost to move them is so great they may never come back. Dittos with labor. Start sending off oil field workers and tell them that there is no work for a long time and they retire or find other things to do and now you have no skilled labor if a day returns when its discovered that the talent is needed Right Now.
Brandon is a Clear and Present Danger to the national security of the former United States. His intentions are hostile and deliberately designed to bring about maximum sustained damage.
This is exactly what happened to UK nuclear workers. We used to be up with the US as world leaders
It will take time to unravel Biden’s unlawful energy acts via the courts. But in the meantime, he and his will get their asses kicked from here to Hades in the upcoming midterms. I don’t think the techniques he used to steal the 2020 election will work in the midterms, for three reasons.
Plus, a few grid failures this summer (been predicted) will help move things along.
It is premature to conclude the 2022 (and 2024) election will not have more fraud than in 2020. Very few people have been punished for 2020 fraud.
And it worked.
Why would it not be done again in 2022?
It’s true that there are so many problems to blame Biden for
so that a lot of cheating will be required in 2022.
If you think leftists will give up power in Congress
without a lot of cheating, think again.
You are also wrong about the mules.
Quotes from an Ann Coulter article
critical of the 2000 Mules movie:
“— Cellphone tracking isn’t precise enough to distinguish between liberal activists stuffing drop boxes, and store owners, police officers, delivery men and others who have perfectly legitimate reasons to be within a few yards of the same drop box every day.
— In all five battleground states D’Souza considers, it is perfectly legal for third parties to drop off ballots for others, with varying degrees of lenience. Pennsylvania, for example, allows a grandparent, grandchild, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, in-law, household member, caregiver or jailer to drop off someone else’s ballot.
— Even if every cellphone dot represented a left-wing organizer illegally dropping off another person’s ballot, that still wouldn’t make the ballot invalid. A legal ballot can be illegally delivered, although the guy who delivered it might be in trouble.”
SOURCE OF QUOTE:
Election Circus: Dinesh’s Stupid 2000 Mules Movie, by Ann Coulter
The main problem is state voter roles with millions of names of people who should have been deleted when they left the state or died. If absentee ballots get n to millions of addresses where they should not be sent, Democrats find ways to get them turned in and counted. Like they do with nursing home patients. The root cause is getting far too many absentee ballots sent out. Those state voter roles are rarely updated for that reason. That problem can not be “guarded against”.
Coulter is a notorious never-Trumper who is regurgitating propaganda about the movie.
Couter is the most annoying woman who writes a column and also a never Trumper. But what she said about the 2000 Mules movie made a lot of sense and that’s why I quoted her. Massive voting fraud worked in 2020 so will be tried again in 2022.
I say massive fraud in 2020 based on the bellwether county survey — Trump won 18 of 19 of those counties yet “lost” the election. An unprecedented result. There was another unprecedented result — less well known is the Census post-election survey to collect data on who voted. That survey always has a problem with some respondents claiming they voted when they did not vote. Based on the sample, the survey has claimed up to 9 million more votes than were actually cast.
Some people who didn’t vote were lying.
In 2020 there was an unprecedented result of the Census survey — it found 4 million FEWER votes than were actually cast. Did people who voted suddenly decide to lie and tell pollsters they did not vote? Of course not. There were far more ballots counted than there were people who said they voted (which is already exaggerated by people who claimed they voted and did not really vote). That is additional evidence of massive voter fraud in 2020.
To fix election fraud, individual ballots have to be proven to be illegal votes. How they got turned in will not change the election. Unfortunately, almost all politicians of both parties want people to believe elections (that they won) are honest. The best way to do that is to never investigate election fraud. Can’t find fraud if you don’t look for it. A hand recount is meaningless — that just counts the illegal votes a second time.
Did you even watch the movie? I doubt it. Watch the Gregg Phillips interview, he debunks this “not accurate enough” nonsense.
If it is so inaccurate, why did the US Govt use it to track down attendees on January 6th?
With current GPS technologies, you can be tracked to within about 6 feet of your exact location. 2000 Mules only used the phone data from those who dropped ballots over 10 times. The fact that a single phone dropped ballots over 10 times (of course, after stopping at the same designated pickup point) indicates massive voting fraud.
All very relevant points that are ignored by the Mule “debunkers”.
https://rumble.com/v18wev9-patel-patriot-interviews-gregg-phillips-part-2.html
I skimmed the video.
It misses the point.
The mules are part of the process.
They are NOT the main problem.
To change an election result you have to examine individual ballots and decide if they were filled out by a legal voter whose signature matches the signature on file with the voter registration.
In Detroit (I live in the suburbs) there was evidence of ballots being printed in a printing ship. They had one perfectly shaped mark on the ballot for Joe Biden and no other marks. If placed elsewhere on the ballot, one mark would have cast a vote for EVERY Democrat on the ballot. That is very common in the city of Detroit. But to vote ONLY for Biden and not vote for any other Democrat is rare. Never investigated.
Checking signatures on induvial ballots is a huge amount of work, which is supposed to happen BEFORE the ballot was counted in the first place.
Every apparently illegal vote can be eliminated before the count, or after the count if there is an investigation
It does not matter if the absentee ballots
arrived via “mules”.
The mules could get in trouble
But the votes will still be counted.
And the election result will not change.
You are essentially claiming the movie is a dry-labbed hoax.
You missed the graphics of the Georgia mule going back-and-forth throughout the Atlanta metro area, stopping at the NGOs to load up with more illegal ballots.
True The Vote did not put all their cards on the table in the movie, do you think they don’t who the NGOs are?
Think CTCL.
You missed my point and Ann Coulter’s point.
The votes still count no matter how they were turned in. It’s possible the mules could get in trouble but not one vote will change if that happens.
BFD—these are felonies that need to be prosecuted all the way up the food chain, otherwise it is just another example of the failure of the rule of law.
otherwise it is just another example of the failure of the rule of law.
How’s that been working out lately?
Poorly—the hubby of Pelosi just got a pass for DUI. And then there are the Clintonistas…
The cellphone evidence was used to select the VIDEO evidence. Try again.
Irrelevant.
The votes still count even if every alleged mule
is convicted and imprisoned.
So it should all just be ignored? Is this your point?
I don’t think he’s saying it should be ignored, Monte, just that there’s nothing that can be done about it after the fact.
Given the current state of our prosecutors and judiciary, I would tend to agree. About the ONLY thing we can do is raise awareness.
Exposing this multi-state criminal conspiracy is the first step, from the bottom upward, which is what True The Vote is doing.
He started by quoting mega-RINO Coulter who repeated the leftist talking point about how the cell phone geo-tracking isn’t accurate enough, which is clearly false, and with this implied that their work is bogus: “alleged mules”.
He started by quoting mega-RINO Coulter who repeated the leftist talking point about how the cell phone geo-tracking isn’t accurate enough
I see… I don’t always go to the top of the thread and I think I don’t always get all the replies by email, so I didn’t see that.
As someone who has done android geolocation programming, I can damn well say it’s accurate enough. I’ve never even heard that point before. It’s beyond laughable.
Solid logic to which the uniparty response is “hold my beer”.
Another big point is that House elections are local, so a large number of illicit votes in one district can’t help candidates in another district. Only statewide elections can be won that way.
With a presidential election you have one chance to get the voting fraud “right” and that required “counting votes” well after midnight on Election Day. With Congressional elections there are lots of elections expected to be close that could be changed with fraud. You don’t have to be successful with your fraud in every election to maintain control of Congress.
The biggest problems for Democrats in 2022:
Biden is so unpopular they’ll need more than the usual amount of fraud.
There’s no Covid epidemic to justify sending absentee ballots to every name in the voter rolls, even when not requested.
I say Democrats will try to keep their power in January 2023 by any means. There may be new methods of fraud we don’t even know of today. Stalin said elections are won by who counts the votes
Excellent summary Dave. We really need to keep pounding this issue. Ending fossil fuels would be the largest and most deadly catastrophe since WWII, it is nearly unimaginable. Yet, the Democrats do not seem to understand the magnitude of what they are proposing.
To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park: The Lost World…
“Ending fossil fuels would be the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas.”
Andy, I think they do but just don’t care. Kerry won’t be hurt since he married two very rich women. Biden won’t care, he has taken ‘10% for the big guy’ for almost 50 years and has his two Delaware mansions squared away. And AOC won’t care because she is a really dumb ‘social democrat’ who cannot comprehend reality.
+1 for the AOC comment. She really is too dumb to be in office.
Alexandria Occasionally Coherent
also known as Alexandria O’Crazy
I like “Occasional Cortex.”
Leftists care about being in charge
and telling everyone what to do.
They ruin everything they touch.
The electric grid will not be an exception.
The next big project after Nut Zero fails
will likely be the
Fix the Broken Electric Grid Project.
Leftists will want to lead that too.
For leftists, everything is wrong
and has to be changed.
They want to be in charge.
That’s their only goal.
It’s their way or the highway.
Note that John K’s middle name is Forbes — of the Forbes Family, known on the east coast as members of the Boston Brahmins or Boston elite.
Money married money. Nothing unusual there.
The rich are different than the rest of us.
John Kerry is one of the most dishonest human beings ever.
That’s probably just a function of low intelligence. I vaguely remember back when he was running against Bush his campaign wanted to release Bush’s college grades until they found out Kerry’s were worse that Bush’s.
Since WW2? You are underestimating the damage dude.
They do understand. That’s what motivates them.
Exactly. The destruction of Western civilization is their goal. Feature, not a bug.
While not the subject of your excellent article it seems useful to mention how many thousands of products are made from petroleum that do not require burning the fuels. In addition to what Biden has already done, such as the 49mpg CAFE fuel economy target for 2026 models which are expected to be launched in late 2025, is what Democrats controlling Congress, and almost the entire bureaucracy, COULD DO in the future.
F J B
David, thanks for the post. Once again, I learned stuff.
Looking forward to your next post.
Regards,
Bob
Add in the Woke banks withholding finance and ESG investors for another layer of bovine excrement to slow things up Brandon is in deep excrement
Yep, energy and basic materials continue to trade extremely undervalued, slowing new projects, while the green scam continues to find big support
Oh boy, I am so excited to read the words of word salad Bob in 3,2,1
…inflation is not this Administration’s fault it’s oil companies, Trump, Putin, Saudi Arabia, global warming, Putin, ferrel pigs, sun spots, Putin, leaves, Right Wing extremists, Putin, Trump, unvaccinated….
https://youtu.be/4U9Yl5CXvcQ
Excellent David, how about?
https://youtu.be/MyOGVk_ypnM
👍 👍
One small detail—blob’s case of TDS is so advanced that he/she/it can no longer type the letters “Trump”, he/she/it substitutes “T****” instead.
I have seen that. Simon is so dumb he probably doesn’t even know.
Not to ruin your joke but … monetary inflation by the Federal Reserve Bank to finance massive deficit spending was already out of control in 2020 while Domald Trump was President and Republicans controlled the Senate.
2020….way earlier than that. Go back to Obama .
I meant “really out of control” which started in 2020.
Ahh
Thank you Mr. Middleton for this recital of the idiotic, inchoate, hypocritical behavior of the Brandon MalAdministration.
And thanks for that link to 2020 voter fraud.
I wonder if the trolls on WUWT read that? I’ll bet they did, but they would never admit it, and would never accept the conclusions.
There was enough voter fraud to swing the 2020 election. Of that, there is no doubt. Despite those who refuse to believe.
There were more fraudulent votes than Biden’s margin of victory in the battleground States. We don’t know who those fraudsters voter for, but they could have all voted for Biden. If they did, then they swung the elelction to Biden illegitimately.
People who say there was no massive voter fraud in the 2020 elections don’t know what they are talking about, or they are lying, if they do know what they are talking about. That includes you, Bill Barr.
Do not forget XL pipeline could have added another 830k bbls/day. But here in Alberta we have our own Brandon blocking development of the worlds 3rd largest oil reserves
btw Many Albertans vacation in the USA, purchase American products and watch American TV, Sports & Movies.
Yep. It would already be flowing, if not for Obama & Brandon and there was already a commitment of ~500,000 bbl/d.
I hope they remember to rotate the shaft of the pipeline pumps laid-up one quarter turn per month. Lead time on them must be over a year. Then again, they’ve probably already been sold off to more sane countries.
Enough with the XL pipeline extension fantasy.
Very little XL got built when Trump was president.
This pipeline has been a pipedream since 2008.
Creation is a very slow process but destruction is almost instantaneously achieved.
America has been great enough to survive these people actively working against it since 1877.
Sometimes things have to get really bad before people understand reality & correct course. I think we are in one of those times. The chaos currently induced in the energy markets by FJB will permanently doom alt energy & CAGW. It will take a few years but this will end well for skeptics & freedom in general. Patience my friends!
Let’s hope so – but unfortunately too many are deluded into believing not only the ‘climate’ crap but also the the current inflation is not LGB’s fault.
Ask the Mayans how that worked out.
At the risk of repeating myself, I think any CEO looking at an investment in an O&G project should tell FJB his business requires a guaranteed return over the life of the project, plus normal renewals. Anything short could be malfeasance.
Yes. The natural consequences of sovereign risk are greater guarantees to the risk taker and higher prices.
It’s like the effect of court decisions adverse to the insurance industry. The result is either higher premiums or an increase in uninsurable risks or both.
Towards the end of this century …. it will be clear that the temp is not going up….Brandon and friends will be gone but trillions spent for nothing will weigh on future generations. The name Brandon will be cursed for generations.
There will be a few others on the list. And the horses they rode into town.
“Ahead of schedule”? Not if it was planned for such a time as this. Yes, “Coups d’etat have consequences.”
It is refreshing to read about how the Biden Maladministration is ruining our energy independence from an expert in the field: thank you DM. Something as rare as hen’s teeth in the current political left majority that so deftly ruined (is ruining) the American economy.
Exxon CEO: Oil Prices Here To Stay For At Least 5 Years…
That’s how far back Biden has set us…
Via Yahoo:
I noticed Biden took particular pleasure in mocking the oil and gas industry in an answer to a reporter’s question yesterday. Biden had this look of pleasure as he scoffed at the remarks of an oil industry executive.
Biden is not only mocking the oil and gas industry, he is also mocking every person who buys gasoline or diesel. Biden is taking great pleasure in our pain.
Of course, it’s all for our own good, don’t you see. Biden knows best.
I’ll take great pleasure in Biden’s pain after the November elections.
As he stumbles up the stairs into a gigantic airplane full of kerosene.
How much is China paying Joe to commit economic suicide and do the funds flow through Hunter’s accounts?
Ah, that deep water, the oil industry gets deeper all the time.
I understand that technology exists, today, that can extract oil from 10,000 feet down (maybe 12,000 feet) below sea level & 20,000 feet below sea bottom.
With that physical ability there is little of the sea bottom we can’t reach.
With intense development (political will) the oil industry could raise production from the Gulf of Mexico to 3 million barrels a day in seven to ten years (deep water drilling takes a lot of lead time and capital).
If it can be done faster let me know, I’m all for it.
There are over 100 wells that have logged pay in water depths ranging from 7,000′ to 10,000′. 75 of which have been completed and are either on production or will be on production when they are tied back to facilities.
There have only been 2 wells in the US GOM drilled in >10,000′ water, neither of which was successful. You actually run out of real estate (EEZ) before you get into much deeper water.
The Gulf of Mexico, as a whole, with Mexican government action, along with Pemex, and, new, private invester’s (recently allowed on a small scale) could increase oil production by two million barrels per day (one million addition in Mexican waters) in seven to ten years.
That was working really well before AMLO, who reversed the 2013 free-market reforms enacted by his predecessor. Mexico’s oil production is already 1 million bbl/d short of EIA’s pre-AMLO forecast.
There was a 500,000 bbl/d discovery made by a US oil company that will probably never be developed because the Mexican government gave operational control to Pemex.
Mexico’s portion of the GOM is seriously underdeveloped. From a well density and infrastructure standpoint, it’s comparable to the US GOM in the early 1970’s.