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New production announcement reinforces value of Gulf of Mexico exploration for domestic energy and economy

BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Scott Angelle today congratulated Anadarko Petroleum on its announcement that initial production has begun on the Caesar/Tonga project in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, and is expected to provide the equivalent of 45,000 barrels of oil a day – or 16 million barrels a year – when the three wells currently drilled there are fully online.

Anadarko is the operator of the Caesar/Tonga project, in waters 4,500 to 4,700 feet deep in the Green Canyon Block of Gulf Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) federal waters, and partners with Chevron, Shell and Statoil in the venture. Located roughly 160 miles due south of Houma, the Caesar\Tonga prospect is estimated to hold the equivalent of 200 million to 400 million barrels of oil.

“At the expected level of production Anadarko has estimated for the first phase, this project alone would produce more oil per day than any one of 37 different U.S. states,” Angelle said. “That is a domestic source of energy that could supplant some of our dependence on foreign imports, helping us in the continuing effort to make ourselves more energy independent and immunizing our economy against global epidemics of high prices and tightened supplies.”

Anadarko has announced that at least one more well will be drilled as part of the first phase of developing the Caesar/Tonga project – which is a combination of three prospects discovered between 2003 and 2007, and initially drilled in 2009.

Angelle said that Anadarko’s announcement affirms Louisiana’s long-held belief in the potential of the Gulf OCS as a critical component in future expansion of jobs, businesses, Louisiana’s economy and the nation’s energy needs – a belief reinforced earlier this year when Howard Gruenspecht, acting administrator of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), said that oil production from the Gulf of Mexico, not from oil shale plays, will be the long-term mainstay for domestic oil supplies.

“Each successful energy project in the Gulf OCS is further evidence that encouraging investment in developing those resources is encouraging investment in jobs for our people, and in a secure economy for this state and this nation,” he said.