A Shell oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico Gulf in symbolizes the changes that both the offshore sector and broader energy industry have gone throughThe Gulf of Mexico once teemed with oil companies off all sizes seeking opportunity and spending lavishly on increasingly sophisticated platforms, pipelines and other technologies to exploit reservoirs in ever deeper waters.
The Gulf of Mexico produces about 1.7 million barrels a day of crude, accounting for about 15 percent of U.S. oil production, according to the Energy Department. Output is expected to grow by about 200,000 barrels day by the end of the year, returning production to its 2019 peak of 1.9 million barrels a day.
“What we're seeing from operators is they're so scarred from the past that they’re just not eager enough - even despite right now $100 plus oil - to undertake these projects,” White said.That has left the field open to the three oil majors that dominate the Gulf: BP, Shell and Chevron. BP produces about 300,000 barrels of oil per day in the Gulf and plans to grow to 400,000 over the next few years.
The platform encompasses a new generation of designs meant to cost less. Vito will lack onboard drilling - that will still be done by drill ships - and instead will pull up oil and gas through pipelines, and separate the two before sending them to shore. Shell said it slashed Vito’s cost by 70 percent from the initial design and can produce oil profitably even if oil drops to $35 per barrel, although now oil is trading above $100 a barrel.
site. The project also includes capturing carbon from facilities along the ship channel, piping it over to the Gulf, and injecting it into reservoirs. Meanwhile, climate change poses another risk to operators in the Gulf: intensifying hurricanes. Ahead of Hurricane Ida in 2021 oil and gas companies shut down nearly all operations in the Gulf, and in some cases, took more than a month to restart activity.On HoustonChronicle.com:“While we are immensely proud of our hurricane preparedness, we are always looking for ways to improve,” said Cynthia Babski, a Shell spokesperson.
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