U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Gulf of Mexico OCS Region NEWS RELEASE

Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Oil Production Accelerated in 2001

MMS Regional Director Chris Oynes announced today that deepwater oil production in the Gulf of Mexico rose again to record levels in 2001. "The rise in oil production from the deepwater Gulf of Mexico has continued at a phenomenal pace with a 24 percent increase from 2000 to 2001," said Oynes.

An estimated 570 million barrels of oil was produced in calendar year 2001 from all of the Gulf of Mexico, up about 50 million barrels over the 522 million barrels in 2000.

Oynes continued, "Natural gas production in the Gulf showed a small increase in 2001 to an estimated 5.07 trillion cubic feet in 2001. Shallow water gas production continued its decline. It was about 2 percent lower in 2001 than 2000 and has declined 19 percent since 1996." Production of natural gas from deepwater continued to expand — it rose 20 percent over the last year. Attached are two tables of the production by year and a table for deepwater startup.

This year’s estimate is more tentative than previous years as actual production records for 2001 are available only through May 2001. The rest of the year was either estimated for shallow water production or collected by a survey of operators for deepwater.

MMS is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf in federal offshore waters. The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses mineral revenues from federal and Indian leases. These revenues totaled nearly $10 billion in 2001 and more than $120 billion since the agency was created in 1982. Annually, nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands.

Oil Production
Gulf of Mexico
1995 – 2001
(In Millions of Barrels)
 

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001 e
Shallow water	290	297	303	285	270	251	235 e
Deepwater	55	72	109	159	225	271	335 e
Total	345	369	412	444	495	522	570 e

e = estimate

Gas Production
Gulf of Mexico
1995 – 2001
(In trillions of cubic feet)

e = estimate

2001 Deepwater Startups

-MMS-GOM-