Offshore oil and gas in the United States
Offshore oil and gas in the United States provides a large portion of the nation’s oil and gas supply. Large oil and gas reservoirs are found under the sea offshore from Louisiana, Texas, California, and Alaska. Environmental concerns have prevented or restricted offshore drilling in some areas, and the issue has been hotly debated at the local and national levels.
From 1954 to 2007, federal offshore tracts produced 16,800,000,000 barrels (2.7×109 m3) of oil and 173,000,000,000,000 cubic feet (4,900 km3) of natural gas.
In 2007, federal offshore tracts produced 27% of the oil and 14% of the natural gas in the United States. Three of the top ten oil fields in the United States in terms of the proven remaining reserves were offshore in the Gulf of Mexico in 2007 (Mars-Ursa, Thunder Horse, and Atlantis). The oil production in the offshore area owned by the federal government reached 492,000,000 barrels (78,000,000 m3) in 2007, down from the record of 602,000,000 barrels (95,700,000 m3) produced in 2002. 2.86 TCF of offshore gas produced in 2007 was down from the high of 5.25 TCF produced in 1996.
The issue of state versus federal ownership has a long and contentious history (see Tidelands). The US Supreme Court ruled in 1947 that the federal government owned all the seabed off the California coast; the court applied the same doctrine against Louisiana and Texas in 1950. The court ruling invalidated existing state leases over producing offshore oil fields in the three states. However, the US Congress passed the Submerged Land Act in 1953, which recognized state ownership of the seabed within 3 nautical miles (6 km) of the shore. That same year Congress also passed the Outer Continental Shelf Act, which gave the federal government jurisdiction over minerals on and under the seabed farther offshore from state waters.
The first federal offshore lease sale was held in 1954, to offer oil production rights under federal seabed in offshore Louisiana.
Each coastal state owns the territory extending 3 nautical miles (6 km) from the shore at mean low tide, and has jurisdiction to decide whether or not, and under what terms, to lease the territory for oil and gas. Exceptions include Texas and the west coast of Florida, which for historical reasons own the seabed out to 9 nautical miles (17 km) from the shore. Louisiana is included in the 3 nautical mile rule, but because it had active offshore leases defined before 1950 (and before most other states), its territory is measured using the Admiralty Nautical Mile, while other states use the International Nautical Mile, adopted by the United States in 1954.
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