June 7, 2021

On January 27, 2021 President Joe Biden temporarily stopped issuing new permits on federal lands, potentially impacting Gulf of Mexico’s offshore production. Currently US government is reviewing its leasing program.

This chart shows Gulf of Mexico’s actual offshore production through 2020 and 3 forecast scenario’s to 2040:

  • No change in permitting – production reaches over 2.1 MMBbl/d by 2028.
  • Some limitations in permitting – production grows slightly to 1.9 MMBbl/d by 2025 and then declines to 1.1 MMBbl/d by 2040.
  • No permitting of federal land/water – production reaches 1.8 MMBbl/d by 2022 and then declines sharply to just 0.3 MMBbl/d by 2040.

Following is a list of major projects:

  • Mad Dog 2 project by BP (140,000 Bbl/d) and Thunder Horse South Phase 2 (50,000 Bbl/d), were scheduled to come online Q4 2021 however, slippage into 2022 is expected.
  • Shell Vito project (100,000 Bbl/d) has been postponed to 2022 due to covid delays.
  • North Platte by Total (75,000 Bbl/d) is expecting FID

Gulf of Mexico Offshore Oil Initial Productivity

Gulf of Mexico Offshore Oil Number of Wells