BP makes finds, development plans offshore USA

BP has made two new discoveries, identified major additional reserves and approved the USD 1.3-billion Atlantis Phase 3 project in the US Gulf of Mexico, the super-major announced on Tuesday.

The two new oil finds, in Mississippi Canyon Block 520 and Mississippi Canyon Block 387 (the latter operated by LLOG), are near the company’s Na Kika platform and are expected to be developed via tiebacks to it, BP’s statement added.

In addition, new seismic studies have identified around a billion barrels of crude in place at the Thunder Horse field and 400 million barrels of oil in place at the Atlantis field. The latter study enabled the approval of Atlantis Phase 3, scheduled to come on stream in 2020 and to produce 38,000 boepd at its peak.

“BP’s Gulf of Mexico business is key to our strategy of growing production of advantaged high-margin oil,” Bernard Looney, the company’s CEO for upstream, said. “We are building on our world-class position, upgrading the resources at our fields through technology, productivity and exploration success.”