BP Cleared for First New Gulf of Mexico Field Project Since 2010 Blowout
(Bloomberg) — The Trump administration has approved BP Plc’s plan to pump billions of dollars’ worth of crude oil from what would be the company’s first virgin field development in the Gulf of Mexico since the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster that triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
BP’s deepwater Kaskida project is scheduled to begin producing crude oil in 2029. In the first phase, the project is expected to produce the equivalent of approximately 275 million barrels of oil from a section of the seabed estimated to hold up to 10 billion barrels of oil.
The Interior Department’s approval of Kaskida came despite objections from environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers who warned that a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster could encourage more ultra-deepwater drilling while threatening Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems.
“The safety of our people and the environment will remain our top priority,” BP said.
BP’s return to large-scale development in the Gulf of Mexico has been gradual since the April 2010 explosion at its Macondo well that killed 11 workers and destroyed Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon floating rig.
Although the British oil giant has permission to resume bidding for federal offshore drilling leases in early 2014, Kaskida represents BP’s first full-blown new field development project in the region in nearly 16 years.
“Kaskida is a world-class project that reflects decades of technological innovation by BP and the offshore oil and gas industry,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email.
“This $5 billion investment will help unlock 10 billion barrels of BP resources discovered in the Paleogene fields of the Gulf of America, bringing more American energy safely online.”
The Kaskida find has remained largely underdeveloped since its discovery almost 20 years ago because the oil industry lacked the technology to manage the high pressure and impede the geology at the site.
Deepwater Horizon, still at the bottom of the Gulf, was leased by BP at the time of the Macondo disaster.
Environmental groups have vowed to fight against approval.
“It is deeply troubling that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management would approve a proposal riddled with legal and regulatory flaws, especially given BP’s history in the Gulf,” said Brettny Hardy, Earthjustice senior attorney. “This is also an insult to the millions of people and businesses in the Gulf whose lives have been changed for the worse by Deepwater Horizon.”
–With help from Mitchell Ferman and Bill Haubert.
(Updates with environmental group’s comment in last paragraph.)
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