Wildcatter hunch unlocks $1.5 trillion oil offshore US
Posted on September 16, 2013 at 7:12 am by Bloomberg in featured, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore
Texaco Inc. geologist Robert Ryan didn’t suspect he was helping change the energy future of the Gulf of Mexico when he gave the go-ahead for a well that would break the world record for deep-water drilling.
The project known as BAHA, undertaken in 1996 by Texaco and its partners, Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Amoco Corp. and Mobil Corp., was a dry hole. That normally would’ve made it a flop. Instead, BAHA’s discovery of oil-rich sands where none were thought to exist was the first step in unlocking a $1.5 trillion trove of crude that’s revived the prospects of a body of water many thought had long ago given up most of its fossil-fuel riches...
