Full Title: Double or Nothing: How Regulators are Gambling on the Future Self-Interest of Large Oil and Gas Companies to Decommission the Gulf of Mexico’s Aging Infrastructure
Author(s): Robert Schuwer, Greg Rogers, Stephen Greenslade
Publisher(s): Carbon Tracker Initiative
Publication Date: June 9, 2022
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The Gulf of Mexico has long been a major oil and gas producing region for the U.S., but field depletion in shallower regions near shore has driven development into deep and ultra-deep waters, driving up the cost to develop and decommission infrastructure.
Meanwhile, aging wells and platforms closer to shore — many of which are now owned by smaller operators — are increasingly marginal in value, raising the risk that they will be abandoned by their current operators.
Double or Nothing finds that as the energy transition accelerates and oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico close, taxpayers may be forced to pay tens of billions in clean up costs. At best, only 10% of estimated decommissioning costs for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) are secured by bonds.