The US Secretary of Interior has signed an order directing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to develop a new five-year plan for oil and gas exploration in offshore waters on the US Outer Continental Shelf. The DOI will conduct a thorough review of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for oil and gas exploration and a thorough review of exploration regulations.
The order is aimed at reviewing drilling bans in parts of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans enacted by the previous administration and at expediting permits for seismic surveys, especially for new or resubmitted applications in the Atlantic. The new order doesn't repeal a previous five-year plan that banned offshore development in some sensitive places.
According to the DOI, only 1% of the OCS acreage is leased for oil and gas development (16.9 million acres, i.e. around 68,400 km²), with 1/4 producing oil and gas. The BOEM estimates that the US OCS holds around 90 Gbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 327 Tcf (9,230 bcm) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas.
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