Oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico could suffer a decline unless the federal government confirms its deadline for the revision of a law regulating endangered species protection.
Without it, the regulatory process to ensure oil and gas operations are carried out in accordance with the Endangered Species Act would become a lot more cumbersome and complicated, potentially affecting production.
The revision was prompted by a court ruling last month in a case brought against the federal government by climate activists. They claimed the current endangered species risk assessment regulation for oil and gas operations, commonly known as the biological opinion, was inadequate and a new one was needed. The judge agreed and ruled that the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service had until December 20 to update the regulation.
Now, the American Petroleum Institute is warning that if the service takes longer than that, it would disrupt oil and gas operations, for which the biological opinion is mandatory.
"With the Gulf of Mexico producing 15% of our country's oil supply, halting production would have serious, far-reaching consequences to our economy and energy security," the API said in a post on X.
In addition to producing 15% of U.S. oil, the Gulf of Mexico also employs more than 400,000 people and generates over $6 billion in federal revenue, the API also said, as quoted by Reuters.
This is not the first time that the industry association has sounded the alarm about the federal government's biological opinion. Last week, API senior vice president Dustin Meyer said "The ramifications could be potentially enormous for operations in what we and many others recognize is such a vital, producing region," adding that "The level of concern is very high," as quoted by Bloomberg.
Bloomberg noted in that report from last week that the Marine Fisheries Service had already started work on an update on the biological opinion but had said during court proceedings it would not be able to complete it "until late winter or early spring 2025."
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More