US oil firms begin quest for offshore oil

Oil companies once viewed drilling in the deep waters off Florida as cost prohibitive. Politicians feared even the slightest sign of support would be career suicide. No more. Record crude oil prices are fueling support for oil and natural gas exploration off the nation’s shores. In Florida, movement was underway even before US president George W Bush called on Congress last month to lift a federal moratorium that’s barred new offshore drilling since 1981.

With gas topping $1 per litre, recent polls show Americans, Floridians included, more supportive of drilling in protected areas. At the same time, oil companies, driven by the record energy price, are more willing to risk $100 million or more to begin exploring new regions. The Interior Department estimates there could be 18 billion barrels of oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas beneath the 574 million acres of federal coastal waters that are now off-limits.

Drilling activity off the Florida Panhandle has started and sputtered for decades. Some companies had leases to drill off the Panhandle before the 1981 moratorium.

In March, four companies — Australia-based BHP Billiton Petroleum Deepwater, Houston-based Anadarko E&P, Shell Offshore and Italian Eni SpA — purchased leases on 36 Gulf of Mexico tracts under the 2006 compromise.