The National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) has called on the Interior Department to expand producer access to offshore acreage in the eastern Gulf of Mexico under its Outer Continental Shelf 2002-2007 leasing program in the wake of the terrorist strikes.

Specifically, the offshore energy group proposes that Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) hold three lease sales in the eastern GOM during the upcoming five-year period, and that the size of the sales be restored to the level that originally had been planned for the current 1997-2002 leasing program — 5.9 million acres. The MMS has proposed only two, limited-acreage eastern GOM lease sales for the 2002-2007 period (See Daily GPI, July 23).

“We strongly encourage MMS to re-evaluate the energy demands of this country in light of national security concerns and expand the OCS acreage available for leasing in the eastern Gulf of Mexico,” NOIA said in its comments on the draft Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2002-2007.

The proposed leasing program “is moving in the wrong direction and falls well short of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act requirements to ‘best meet national energy needs.’ The proposed program is one of the smallest, most limited ever issued. It significantly reduces access to resource-rich offshore acreage in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, an action that we find untenable given the energy and national security issues facing the nation today and in the future.”

As the production potential of the central and western GOM matures, NOIA said it believes that the eastern region of the GOM holds “great potential” for future oil and natural gas finds, which could significantly boost “our market power, energy stability and our national security.” NOIA called the Bush administration’s decision to limit producer access to these reserves “bad energy policy.”

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