British energy giant BP, which recently shelved carbon-reduction targets to focus on more profitable fossil fuel output, said Monday it had made a new oil discovery off the US Gulf coast.
The company said it had located oil at the Far South prospect.
“This discovery in the deepwater Gulf of America underscores how BP is in action to step up investment in exploration and strengthen its upstream portfolio under the strategy reset announced in February,” BP said in a statement, using President Donald Trump’s new name for the Gulf of Mexico.
In an executive order signed hours after he returned to the White House, Trump called the water body an “indelible part of America” critical to US oil production and fishing and “a favorite destination for American tourism and recreation activities.”
Andy Krieger, BP senior vice president for Gulf of America and Canada, described its Gulf business as “central to BP’s strategy”.
The company’s history with the US Gulf coast is synonymous with the explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010 that triggered the worst oil spill in US history.
The disaster killed 11 employees and cost the firm tens of billions of dollars in damages and compensation.
Almost 15 years later, BP on Monday said the exploration well that led it to the new oil discovery is located in western Green Canyon, approximately 120 miles (192 kilometres) off the coast of Louisiana.
BP operates Far South owing to its majority 57.5-percent holding, while US peer Chevron owns the remainder.
Krieger added that BP is “focused on delivering more affordable and reliable energy” from the Gulf.
BP said it is ramping up its global exploration programme, with around 40 wells planned over the next three years, including as many as 15 to be drilled this year.
The group expects to grow its daily global output to between 2.3 million and 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2030, it added.
More than 400,000 of these barrels are expected to emerge off the US Gulf coast, said Krieger.
BP said that around one million barrels of oil equivalent per day are expected to be delivered from the US onshore and offshore regions by the end of the decade.
The company on Friday said its oil production was expected to be slightly higher in the first quarter compared with the final three months of last year.
It added in a trading update that gas production was expected to have fallen in the latest January-March period.
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