San Francisco: Even with oil prices slumping the US Government is preparing an August auction of more than 21 million acres of offshore acreage in the western US waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced on Tuesday.
The area could contain up to 200m barrels of oil and 25 billion cu m of gas, the bureau estimates.
Last month the BOEM announced it would auction 40 million acres in the GOM on March 18.
The Gulf of Mexico contributes about 18 percent of US oil production and 5 percent of its gas production. Production there has been growing in the past year and thirteen fields are expected to start up in the next two years, eight this year and five in 2016.
“The exploration and development of the Gulf of Mexico’s vital energy resources will continue to help power our nation and drive our economy,” BOEM director Abigail Ross Hopper said.
