{"id":388554,"date":"2025-07-13T13:06:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T11:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=388554"},"modified":"2025-07-13T13:06:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T11:06:38","slug":"the-big-beautiful-bill-and-the-gulf-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=388554","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d and the Gulf of America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guest \u201cYee-haw!<\/a>\u201d by David Middleton<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brief recap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From 2017 through 2020, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held seven area-wide Gulf of America (GOA) lease sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 2021 through 2024, BOEM only held three GOA lease sales. Lease Sale 257, held in November 2021, was nullified by a corrupt Obama judge. Biden, or whoever was operating the Autopen, cancelled sales 259 and 261, scheduled for 2022 and 2023 respectively. Then Biden\u2019s Interior Department unlawfully refused to issue a new leasing plan. If not for one good provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, there would have been no GOA lease sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Inflation Reduction Act (the Act), which passed the U.S. Senate on Aug. 7, 2022, requires that previously announced offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska be held during the next two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Act requires the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) to award leases to the highest bidders in Lease Sale 257, which was held in November 2021. In January 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia vacated Lease Sale 257 after finding that Interior\u2019s environmental review failed to adequately consider certain greenhouse gas emissions related to holding the offshore oil and gas lease sale. See Friends of the Earth v. Haaland, <\/em>2022 WL 254526 (D.D.C. Jan. 27, 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Act directs Interior to rely on its Record of Decision for Outer Continental Oil and Gas Leasing Program Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement issued on Jan. 17, 2017 (82 Fed. Reg. 6643). The Act also requires Interior to move forward with Lease Sale 258 in Alaska Region\u2019s Cook Inlet by Dec. 31, 2022, and two additional Gulf of Mexico Lease sales, Lease Sales 259 and 261, by March 2023 and September 2023, respectively. The Act provides that the restored and new lease sales be held despite the fact that the Five-Year Leasing Plan mandated by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act expired in June 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holland and Knight<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Despite the worst efforts <\/a>of Biden\u2019s Autopen<\/a>, Gulf of America operators managed to maintain a production level of about 1.8 million barrels per day, second only to the Permian Basin, among US oil producing regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 In-brief analysisJune 6, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gulf of America oil and natural gas production expected to remain stable through 2026<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Data source:\u00a0<\/strong>U.S. Energy Information Administration,\u00a0<\/em>Short-Term Energy Outlook<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(STEO), May 2025<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We forecast crude oil production in the Federal Offshore Gulf of America (GOA) will average 1.80 million barrels per day (b\/d) in 2025 and 1.81 million b\/d in 2026, compared with 1.77 million b\/d in 2024, in our most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook<\/em><\/a> (STEO). We expect GOA natural gas production to average 1.72 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf\/d) in 2025 and 1.64 Bcf\/d in 2026, compared with 1.79 Bcf\/d in 2024. At these volumes, the GOA is forecast to contribute about 13% of U.S. crude oil production and 1% of U.S. marketed natural gas production in 2025 and 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We expect operators to start crude oil and natural gas production at 13 fields in the GOA during 2025 and 2026, without which GOA production would decline. Eight fields will be developed using subsea tiebacks<\/a> or underwater extensions to existing Floating Production Units<\/a> (FPUs) at the surface. Five fields will produce from four new FPUs, with one of the new FPUs (Salamanca FPU) targeting production from two fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We expect the additional crude oil production from all new fields will contribute 85,000 b\/d in 2025 and 308,000 b\/d in 2026. We expect associated natural gas production from the new fields will average 0.09 Bcf\/d in 2025 and 0.27 Bcf\/d in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three fields began producing earlier this year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n