Here's What's New
in the Pacific OCS Region

The Pacific OCS Region, Minerals Management Service What's New page contains significant activities and developments occurring within the past 120 days.

News Releases

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PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: Request for Scoping Comments - For Preparation of Environmental Assessments For Granting Lease Suspensions on 36 Undeveloped OCS Leases, July 21, 2004.

Thirty-six (36) of the 79 OCS leases offshore California are undeveloped. These leases, for which unproven reserves are estimated to be 1 billion barrels of oil and over 500 billion cubic feet of gas, are organized into nine units and one non-unitized lease. The undeveloped leases are generally dispersed through an area in which production has been occurring for over 30 years and development of the producing leases is continuing. Projects have been proposed for a number of the undeveloped leases. However, the future of the undeveloped leases is in question as a result of litigation. On December 2, 2002, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Interior and affirmed the June 20, 2001, decision of the US 10th District Court with respect to NEPA and CZMA. The leases continue under suspensions directed by MMS until their status is resolved. The plans under review when California brought suit against MMS have been tabled, and activities (public hearings, review/comments) associated with the draft Environmental Impact Statement on delineation drilling on four separate undeveloped units offshore California have likewise been postponed. Lessees of the undeveloped leases subsequently filed suit (in January 2002) against the U.S. Government for breach of lease obligations and are pursuing damages.

 MARINe Scientists from Federal, State, and local government agencies, universities, and private and volunteer organizations have formed a Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network (MARINe) to monitor important shoreline resources.

Notice of Availability: Decommissioning Offshore Platforms and Pipelines: Environmental Studies Workshop Proceedings

Notice of Availability: MMS Final Environmental Assessment (EA) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for Arguello Inc.’s Proposed Revisions to the Point Arguello Field Development and Production Plans to Include Development of the Eastern Half of Lease OCS-P 0451. The final documents are available through this link.

Notice of Availability -- Draft Mitigated Negative Declaration/Environmental Assessment for Santa Ynez Unit Offshore Power System Repair Project: Santa Barbara County and MMS have published a draft environmental analysis of projected effects of this project. The draft document is available through this link.

 Production Information Ad hoc Online Query Available. Production information by well, lease and date now available online. Updated monthly.

Forms Used by Permittees, Lessees and Operators are available from our Gulf Region's site. Their forms page provides a listing of MMS Forms used by the Offshore Regions.

Free Data Available for Downloading. Leasing, Production, Platform/Rig, and Well Data available in ASCII Fixed and Delimited format.

The following website, http://www.lumcon.edu/library/eoogd/default.asp, contains the most recent (July 2001) quarterly bibliography entitled: Effects of Offshore Oil and Gas Development: A Current Awareness Bibliography. The bibliography is researched and maintained (dates back to 1990) as a MMS CMI study out of GOMR performed by the library at LUMCON - Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. The bibliography covers oil and gas effects related to biology, engineering, socioeconomics, spill management - you can browse and search all issues. Click on quarterly issues to find July 2001.

Library A Collection of Papers, Articles, and Information from the Pacific Region

Santa Maria Basin Oil Seep Study