OCS Fact Sheet

According to information (OCS Primer PDF) derived from the Minerals Management Service allowing expanded access to deep offshore Federal waters will:

Helps Create Jobs:

• More than 45,000 people are directly employed by offshore operations; with more than 1.5 million people employed by the domestic oil and gas industry. There are about 4,000 OCS production facilities and 33,000 miles of pipelines.

• The Gulf of Mexico deep offshore waters have been producing oil and natural gas since the 1950s.

• In 2003, the Gulf of Mexico offshore waters contributed 29 percent of the oil produced in the US and 22 percent of domestic natural gas production.

• The 1.5 million barrels per day of oil from Central and Western Gulf of Mexico waters is equivalent to our imports from Saudi Arabia.

• The 4.4 trillion cubic feet produced annually from Central and Western Gulf of Mexico waters is enough natural gas to meet more than 80 percent of the electric industry’s consumption of natural gas.

• The Minerals Management Service (MMS) has called deepwater oil and natural gas development in the Gulf of Mexico “a workhorse for U.S. domestic oil and gas production.” According to MMS, offshore deepwater oil production rose 535% between 1995 and 2002 and deepwater natural gas production rose 620% over those same years.

Provides Greater Domestic Energy Security

• Almost 90 percent of the deep offshore acreage off the lower 48 states is “off limits” to energy development.

• The undiscovered resources in federal water is estimated at 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and almost 86 billion barrels of oil. For perspective, that is equivalent to three times the oil resources of Canada and Mexico combined and almost 6 times the natural gas resources of these two countries.

• According to conservative estimates from MMS there are about 288 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 59 billion barrels of oil yet to be discovered on the OCS off the lower 48 states (NOT including Alaska).

• This is enough oil to maintain current oil production for 105 years and current natural gas production for 71 years.

• That is enough oil to produce gasoline for 132 million cars and heating oil for 54 million homes for 15 years.

• It is enough oil to replace current imports from the Persian Gulf for 59 years.

• That is enough natural gas to heat 72 million homes for 60 years, OR to supply current industrial and commercial needs for 28 years OR to supply current electricity generating needs for 53 years.

• And, that is before the Alaska OCS is considered with additional resources of 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and over 26 billion barrels of oil.