Ballymore FID no herald of GoM renaissance

Forecasts are for moderate growth rather than a development bonanza fuelled by high oil prices

Chevron’s mid-May FID on the Ballymore project in the deepwater US Gulf of Mexico (GoM) shows there is still appetite to advance new offshore projects. But it also demonstrates that operators continue to prioritise cost reduction even as crude prices remain at multi-year highs of above $110/bl. “Recent crude oil price increases do not have a significant effect on operations in the Gulf of Mexico, which have a longer runup and are less sensitive to short-term price movements than the Lower 48 [US states],” says Kirby Lawrence, a mathematical statistician at the EIA. The EIA estimates that GoM production was 1.69mn bl/d on average in the first quarter of 2022. The agency anticipates this will