Thursday, June 28, 2012
Houston Chronicle: If we can get beyond the inevitable who-should-get-the-credit arguments, the record sale of oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico is good news. The Houston region should benefit from some of the jobs added, while the country will get an added measure of energy security out of the expansion of drilling offshore.
The record bids, totaling $1.7 billion, went for leases on 454 tracts covering 2.4 million acres in waters as deep as 11,000 feet.
The highest single bid was made by Statoil, the Norwegian national company, for a tract in the Mississippi Canyon in the Central Gulf. Houston-based Shell Oil submitted the highest total of bids, $763.8 million for 24 tracts.
The squawking about who deserves the credit probably stems from the high-profile presence of Energy Secretary Ken Salazar at the announcement of the new leases and his assertion that it proves “the Gulf is back.”