US proposes unlocking its oil reserves

FE Team | Published: April 04, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

WASHINGTON (Commodity Online): US President Barack Obama in an energy plan unveiled Wednesday, proposed to open parts of the Atlantic Coast, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. "Right now the industry holds tens of millions of acres of leases where they're not producing a single drop," the president said. "They're just sitting on supplies of American energy that are ready to be tapped." Meanwhile, drilling at an exploratory well in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico is scheduled for April, Royal Dutch Shell announced. The work marks the first new exploration well that clears all regulatory obstacles since the Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last April. The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement announced this week that it approved a deep-water drilling permit for Shell. The approval permit is for a new well in the Garden Banks block about 137 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Work will be carried out in about 2,700 feet of water.