Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)

…and were in fact identical in August (1.763 million BOPD). GoM production should strengthen a bit in 2023 as new deepwater projects come online. Norwegian production should also increase. The longer term is more uncertain, particularly for the US OCS which is seemingly being managed to fail.

Natural gas production is a different story. Norway has been sustaining and growing offshore gas production, while Gulf of Mexico gas production has been in free-fall. Total US production has nonetheless grown sharply over the past 17 years thanks to the shale boom (see the chart below). In the 1980’s, the GoM accounted for 20-25% of US gas production. The GoM share is now only 2%, most of which is gas that is associated with deepwater oil production. Nonassociated offshore gas has important advantages that should not be ignored.