As the intense debate about the offshore drilling moratorium continues following the tragic Gulf of Mexico incident, I’ve been reading a report on the future of deepwater oil and natural gas production published by the Cambridge Energy Research Associates.  The facts contained in CERA’s report are important reading for anyone considering the appropriate policy response to the Deepwater Horizon accident.

Deepwater resources have grown over the past decade to become “one of the most important pillars of global oil supply growth,” the report says.  Here are some of CERA’s statistics:

• U.S. Gulf of Mexico production accounts for 30 percent of all U.S. crude oil production (1.6 million barrels a day out of a total 5.3 million barrels per day).  The Gulf of Mexico is one of three top deepwater areas in the world (along with West Africa and Brazil).
• Because of deepwater activity in the Gulf of Mexico, last year the United States grew its domestic oil production for the first time since 1991. Rising deepwater production also was a factor behind a drop in U.S. oil imports.
• Globally, deepwater production capacity has more than tripled since 2000. If deepwater production — more than 5 million barrels a day — was viewed as its own “country,” it would exceed the production of every other country except Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States.  That rate has the potential to rise to 10 million barrels a day by 2015, CERA said.

And here’s one fact in CERA’s report that even I found surprising: In 2008, the total amount of oil and natural gas discovered in deep water globally exceeded the volume found onshore and in shallow water combined.

There have been 14,000 deepwater wells globally; ExxonMobil alone has drilled 262 wells in water depths of 2,500 feet or more.  As I’ve noted in earlier posts, ExxonMobil’s experience is that when proper procedures are followed, accidents such as the Deepwater Horizon do not occur.

Given the scale and potential of deepwater oil and gas to meeting the world’s energy needs, it’s critical that we understand what happened at the Deepwater Horizon.  We don’t yet know all the facts surrounding this incident.  What we do know, however, is that when you properly design wells for the range of risk anticipated; follow established procedures; build in layers of redundancy; properly inspect and maintain equipment; train operators; conduct tests and drills; and focus on safe operations and risk management, tragic incidents like this one should not occur.

Those are facts that should not be forgotten in the current debate because safe and environmentally responsible development of the world’s deepwater resources is so important to our economic prosperity and energy security.