Offshore production transforms world energy outlook

The offshore deep water exploration and production has been helping transform the outlook of the energy sector worldwide, an industry executive said Wednesday. Ryan Lance, chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, the world's largest independent pure-play exploration and production company made the remarks in a commentary written for the Houston Chronicle on the occasion of the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. The conference, the largest of its kind, attracted nearly 100,000 industry insiders and quite a few big-name leaders including Lance. Lance said though the energy renaissance in North America is primarily attributed to an onshore shale boom, "the vital contribution of offshore production in enhancing energy security, job creation and economic prosperity" cannot be overlooked. He cited the Gulf of Mexico as an example, which yields one-sixth of the country's oil and one-twentieth of its natural gas. The Gulf deep water has emerged to become one of the world's great exploration provinces. It already produces 1.3 million barrels of oil per day, and that could rise nearly 50 percent by 2020 thanks to discoveries already made and development projects already under way, Lance said. Besides the Gulf of Mexico, ConocoPhillips also produces from the Norwegian and United Kingdom sectors of the North Sea, and from offshore China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Qatar, Australia and Timor-Leste. Additionally the company has offshore exploratory acreage in 10 countries, the CEO said. ConocoPhillips was created through the merger of Conoco Inc. and the Phillips Petroleum Co. in 2002 and was the fifth largest integrated oil company until spinning off its downstream assets to Phillips 66. It is also one of the Fortune 500 companies.