Offshore drilling for oil and gas on the Atlantic coast of the United States took place from 1947 to the early 1980s. Oil companies drilled five wells in Atlantic Florida state waters and 51 exploratory wells on federal leases on the outer continental shelf of the Atlantic coast. None of the wells were completed as producing wells. All the leases have now reverted to the government.
Although no oil or gas have been produced from beneath U.S. Atlantic waters, there are active offshore fields to the south in offshore Cuba and to the north in offshore Canada.
Each US state along the Atlantic coast owns as territorial waters out to three nautical miles (3.45 statute, or land miles) from the shore at mean low tide, and has jurisdiction to decide whether or not, and under what terms, to lease the territory for oil and gas. The federal government owns and controls the minerals between three and from the shore.
In accordance with congressional restrictions and presidential orders, no federal leasing has taken place on the offshore Atlantic coast of the United States since the early 1980s. The federal government had scheduled a lease sale for offshore Virginia, to take place in 2011, and in March 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intention to open the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic planning areas to oil and gas exploration.John M. Broder, Obama oil drilling plan draws critics, New York Times, 31 March 2010.U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Preliminary Revised Program, Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program 2007-2012 (March 2010). However, lease sale plans were canceled in May 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In December 2010, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a ban on drilling in federal waters off the Atlantic coast through 2017.Juliet Eilperin and Steve Mufson, Offshore drilling policy reversed, Washington Post, 2 December 2010. In 2017 President Trump issued an executive order aimed to open and streamline oil exploration on the Atlantic coast and elsewhere, stating that "It shall be the policy of the United States to encourage energy exploration and production".
Reserves No oil or gas has been produced from the U.S. Atlantic continental shelf. Some gas discoveries were made by Tenneco, Texaco, and Exxon in shallow waters off New Jersey, but these were judged uneconomic at the time, and were never produced.USGS Wells Database
A 2012 study by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) (part of the U.S. Department of the Interior) estimated undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources in Atlantic federal waters to be 3.30 billion barrels of oil (Bbo) and 31.28 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas.US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (2012) Assessment of Undiscovered Technically Recoverable Oil and Gas Resources of the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf 2011 as of January 1, 2009 BOEM 2012-016, PDF file, retrieved 11 May 2012. This represents approximately 4% of the total estimated recoverable oil resources and 8% of the total estimated recoverable gas resources in U.S. federal waters.Assessment of Undiscovered Technically Recoverable Oil and Gas Resources of the Nation's Outer Continental Shelf, 2011, PDF file, retrieved 11 May 2012.
Straits of Florida Five wells were drilled in Florida state waters in the Straits of Florida (in waters off the Florida Keys) from 1946 to 1962. Gulf Oil operated three wells in state waters south of the Florida Keys in 1959, 1960 and 1961, while Chevron (Calco) and Sinclair each operated one. The wells were considered to be dry holes, however, oil shows were found in all the wells and live oil was tested in the State Lease 826Y-1.Florida Geological Survey Files
The boundary between the Exclusive Economic Zones of the U.S. and Cuba is halfway between Cuba and Florida, as determined by a 1977 Modus vivendi between the U.S. and Cuba.United Nations, Maritime boundary - modus viviendi effected by exchange of letters between the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba, 27 April 1977, PDF file.
Offshore Cuba
Cuba has three producing offshore oil fields within 5 km of its north coast opposite Florida.University of Texas, Jorge R Pinon Cervera: Cuba's energy challenge: a second look , PDF file, retrieved 3 March 2009. The US Geological Survey estimates that the North Cuba Basin contains of undiscovered petroleum liquids and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, almost all in the offshore part of the basin.Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the North Cuba Basin, Cuba, 2004, (2005) US Geological Survey, Fact Sheet.
The issue of allowing oil and gas exploration offshore Florida became a hotly contested topic in the 2008 US elections. In a column published 5 June 2008, syndicated columnist George Will wrote that a Chinese oil company was then drilling in Cuban waters from the Florida coast, a claim that was repeated by candidates in favor of offshore drilling.George Will (5 June 2008): The gas price we deserve, accessed 13 March 2009. George Will later acknowledged that no drilling was then taking place in that part of Cuban waters.
In 2004 the Spanish oil company Repsol-YPF drilled in deep Cuban waters between Cuba and the Florida Keys, and found an oil deposit; the deposit was judged noncommercial, and the hole was plugged.Reuters (16 April 2008): Cuban off-shore drilling put off until 2009, accessed 11 March 2009. Repsol returned in 2012 to drill three more dry holes in deepwater locations in partnership with the Norwegian company Statoil, then halted further attempts.Cuba Standard, Cuba announces start of more offshore drilling, 16 Dec. 2012.
In October 2008, Cuba signed an agreement with the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras, which provides for Petrobras to drill for oil and gas in deep waters off the north shore of Cuba.Time (23 October 2008): How Cuba's oil could change the US embargo Retrieved 17 December 2008."Petrobras signs with Cuba", World Oil, December 2008, p.109. Petrobras obtained poor drilling results, and pulled out in March 2011.Reuters, Petrobras has relinquished Cuba oil block - official, 10 Mar. 2011.
In July 2009, Cuba signed an agreement with the Russian government giving the Russian oil company Zarubezhneft oil exploration rights in shallower waters closer to the north shore of Cuba.BBC News, Russia to drill for oil off Cuba, 29 July 2009. Zarubezhneft secured a shallow waster drilling rig and moved it to Cuba in late 2012. Zarubezhneft also failed to find new oil deposits, and announced in May 2013 that they were halting further drilling and releasing the rig. Cuban officials said that they expected Zarubezhneft to return to drilling in 2014.Cuba Standard, Zarubezhneft abandons drilling in Cuba for now, 31 May 2013.
Offshore Bahamas In 2009 the Falkland Islands-registered company BPC Limited and Norwegian company Statoil announced a joint venture to drill for oil in Bahamian waters north of Cuba and southeast of Florida.Reuters (18 May 2009): , accessed 28 May 2009.BPC website, Overview of assets , accessed 15 July 2009. The government of the Bahamas has indicated that applications for offshore drilling are on hold pending negotiations with Cuba, the United States, and the Turks and Caicos Islands on the exact boundaries between their respective Exclusive Economic Zones.Vernon Clement Jones, "Deveaux confirms Cuban oil negotiations" , Nassau Guardian, 7 July 2009, accessed 15 July 2009
Southern Atlantic coast
The first lease sale in the Southeast Georgia Embayment off the coast of Georgia and Florida was held in 1978.R.V. Amato and J.W. Bebout (eds.) Geologic and Operational Summary, COST No. GE-1 Well, US Geological Survey, Open-File Report 78-668, PDF file, retrieved 19 February 2009. Oil companies drilled seven wells, all dry holes.Jan Libby-French and Roger V. Amato, "Atlantic Coastal Plain", American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, October 1981, v.65, n.10, p.1930-1932.
When President Biden took office in January 2021, he issued an executive order halting new oil and gas leases across federal lands and waters, but a federal judge in Louisiana immediately struck it down. The government then put up over 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico at auction, and companies bid on the right to drill in over 1.7 million offshore acres. In January 2022, however, a federal judge ruled that the Department of the Interior had underestimated the effects on climate and that the drilling could not proceed.
Middle Atlantic coast
A number of oil companies bought federal leases offshore North Carolina, but in 1990 the U.S. Secretary of Commerce denied Mobil Oil permission to drill after Congress passed the federal North Carolina Outer Banks Protection Act, prohibiting leasing and drilling on federal seabed offshore from North Carolina. Mobil and Marathon Oil sued the federal government to recover money paid for the leases.
In June 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the oil companies in the Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United States, 530 U.S. 604 (2000), and ordered the federal government to repay $158 million. The government paid, and the companies relinquished the leases.H. David Gold, Supreme Court Orders Federal Government toReturn More than $150 Million to Oil Companies, 28 Ecology Law Quarterly.
North Atlantic coast
About 30 wells explored the Baltimore Canyon Trough, about off the coast of New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia.Anthony C. Giordano and Roger V. Amato, "Oil and gas developments in Atlantic coastal plain and outer continental shelf in 1981," American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, November 1982, v.66, n.11, p.2006-2010. In one area, five wells tested significant flows of gas from Jurassic rocks, at rates as high as 18.9 million cubic feet per day. A 3-dimensional seismic survey was made over the area, but, in part due to falling gas prices in the 1980s, the lessee oil companies concluded that the tracts were uneconomic. The last leases were relinquished in 1984.Roger V. Amato and LeRon E. Bielak (1989) Texaco Hudson Canyon 642-1 Well, US Minerals Management Service, OCS Report MMS 89-0027, PDF file, retrieved 20 February 2009. In 2022, the Baltimore Canyon Offshore area was identified by researchers as a "carbon bomb," with the potential to produce 1.2 gigatons of emissions if its reserves were extracted and burnt.
From 1976 though 1982, oil companies drilled ten exploratory wells in the U.S. portion of the Georges Bank Basin, about off the coast of Massachusetts. The deepest well had a total depth of .Gary M. Edson and others (2000) Georges Bank Petroleum Exploration, U.S. Minerals Management Service, OCS Report MMS 2000-031 , PDF file, retrieved 19 February 2009. None were successful.Anthony C. Giordano and Roger V. Amato, "Oil and gas developments in Atlantic coastal plain and outer continental shelf in 1981," American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, November 1982, v.66, n.11, p.2006-2010.
Offshore Atlantic Canada The Canadian federal government and the province of Nova Scotia have jointly imposed a moratorium until 2015 on drilling in the Canadian portion of the Georges Bank.Government of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia's Georges Bank Offshore Oil Deposits, accessed 17 January 2014.