❗Let's close the gap: We still need your help to raise $40,000 by April 1. Donate now

The oil industry plans to spend more on deepwater drilling

Stephen Beard Dec 29, 2010
HTML EMBED:
COPY

The oil industry plans to spend more on deepwater drilling

Stephen Beard Dec 29, 2010
HTML EMBED:
COPY

TEXT OF STORY

STACEY VANEK SMITH: If you thought the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico would deter deepwater drilling, think again. The oil industry will spend more than ever looking for new oil and gas wells next year.

Marketplace’s Stephen Beard reports from London.


STEPHEN BEARD: A new oil survey shows that spending on new wells, platforms and drilling rigs will hit almost half a trillion dollars next year. That’s an 11 percent increase on 2010. This suggest confidence in the oil industry that the increase in the price of crude will hold. So extra production should be profitable. But also there’s the growing cost of operating in tricky conditions. Companies will splash out even more on deepwater drilling — for example. Big oil has not been deterred by BP’s disaster.

Dr. Clifford Jones, is an energy expert at Aberdeen University.

CLIFFORD JONES: Oil production and oil exploration won’t stop. They can’t. Because the world needs 80 million barrels of oil a day. And that state of affairs can’t be changed in response to one event, however tragic.

But the disaster is adding more cost to offshore oil exploration in the U.S. as drilling permits are now harder to come by.

In London this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.