Fossil companies including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil offered a combined US$192 million for drilling rights on federal oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, as the first government lease auction under President Joe Biden laid bare the hurdles he faces to reach climate goals dependent on deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions.
The auction came after attorneys general from Republican states successfully sued in federal court to lift a suspension on federal oil and gas sales that Biden imposed when he took office, The Associated Press reports.
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Companies offered bids on 308 tracts totaling nearly 2,700 square miles (6,950 square kilometres) during a virtual auction hosted by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. It marked the largest total acreage and second-highest bid total from a government auction since Gulf-wide bidding resumed in 2017.
“The administration said it was compelled to hold the sale after its moratorium on new auctions was deemed unlawful by a federal judge in Louisiana—and many officials were not too happy about it,” writes Politico Morning Energy. “That includes Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose agency filed an appeal with the 5th Circuit, arguing it had wide leeway in determining the timelines of lease sales.”
“Your frustration is similar to my own,” U.S. National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy told a participant at a White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council meeting Wednesday, “and there was literally nothing that we could do to stop it.”
But Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president for energy and environment policy at the Center for American Progress, said the lease sales “are completely out of step with the greenhouse gas reductions that scientists say are needed and with the climate goals the Biden administration committed to just last week at COP 26.”
Driving the heightened interest are a rebound in oil prices and uncertainty about the future of the government leasing program, AP says, citing industry analysts. Biden campaigned on pledges to end drilling on federally owned lands and waters, which includes the Gulf
“Prices are higher now than they’ve been since 2018,” said Rene Santos, senior director, exploration and production analysis at S&P Global Platts. “The other thing is this fear that the Biden administration is here for another three years. They’re certainly not going to accelerate the number of lease sales and they could potentially have fewer sales.”
It will take years to develop the leases before companies start pumping crude, AP adds. That means they could keep producing long past 2030, when scientists say the world needs to be well on the way to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Yet even as Biden tried to cajole other world leaders into strengthening international efforts against global warming, including during negotiations at COP 26, he’s had difficulty gaining ground on climate issues at home.
The administration last week proposed another round of oil and gas lease sales in 2022, in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and other western states. Interior Department officials proceeded despite concluding that burning the fuels could lead to billions of dollars in future climate damages.
Emissions from burning and extracting fossil fuels from public lands and waters account for about a quarter of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“The thing that is really bedeviling people right now is this conflict between the short term and long term when it comes to energy policy,” said Jim Krane, an energy studies fellow at Rice University in Houston. “We still need this energy system that is basically causing climate change, even as we’re fighting climate change.”
Wednesday’s livestreamed auction invited energy companies to bid on drilling leases across 136,000 square miles (352,000 square kilometres)—about twice the area of Florida. Federal officials estimated prior to the sale that it could lead to the production of up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Shell Offshore Inc., the largest leaseholder in the Gulf, said the 20 tracts on which it successfully bid $17.9 million could offer development opportunities near existing platforms or new areas.
“Regardless of today’s outcome, the need absolutely continues for continued competitive leases in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico,” said Shell spokesperson Cindy Babski.
Chevron USA was the top bidder, offering almost $49 million on 34 tracts. BP Exploration and Production had $30 million in high bids on 46 tracts, and Anadarko US Offshore had almost $40 million in high bids—including the day’s highest bid, $10 million—on 30 tracts.
ExxonMobil bid nearly $15 million in two areas off the Texas shoreline. Those 94 tracts are in shallow water—less than 656 feet (200 metres) deep—where oil has mostly played out and there are few active leases.
Not far away in the Houston Ship Channel, Exxon is pursuing a government-industry collaboration that would raise $100 billion to capture carbon dioxide from industrial plants, carry it away in pipelines, and inject it deep under the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. Company spokesperson Todd Spitler declined to say if there was a link between that proposal and the tracts it bid on Wednesday, adding that the company was evaluating the geology beneath the seafloor for “future commercial potential.”
“We will work with the Department of Interior on plans for the blocks once they are awarded,” he added.
Environmental reviews of the lease auction—conducted under Donald Trump and affirmed under Biden—reached an unlikely conclusion: Extracting and burning the fuel would result in fewer greenhouse gases than leaving it.
Similar claims in two other cases, in Alaska, were rejected by federal courts after challenges from environmentalists. Climate scientist Peter Erickson, whose work was cited by judges in one of the cases, said the Interior Department’s analysis had a glaring omission: It excluded greenhouse gas increases in foreign countries that result from having more Gulf oil enter the market.
Federal officials recently changed their emissions modeling methods, citing Erickson’s work, but said it was too late to use that approach for Wednesday’s auction.
An attorney for environmental groups that sued the Biden administration over Wednesday’s sale said it was held in violation of the law based on “incorrect data” that doesn’t reflect its impact on the environment. “By selling these leases, the Biden administration is not solving the oil prices of today, but instead increasing the United States’ climate heating emissions tomorrow,” said Earthjustice attorney Brettny Hardy.
The Gulf of Mexico accounts for about 15% of total U.S. crude production and 5% of its natural gas.
