Gas Resource Potential of the West Florida Shelf and Slope

By

Gohrbandt, Klaus H.

Gulf Breeze, FL

Gas production offshore Florida’s Gulf coast is not so much a technical challenge as it is a political challenge.Florida objects to petroleum drilling in Gulf waters since 1987 to appease public fear of environmental impacts on Florida’s scenic coastline. The state closed its 10-mile-wide belt of Gulf coastal waters to petroleum activities in 1990. That attitude climaxed subsequently in the state’s establishment of the policy to oppose lease sales in Gulf’s federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) waters within an arbitrarily designated 100-mile-wide buffer zone. Pres. Bill Clinton postponed new leasing in eastern Gulf OCS waters until after 2012, excluding Lease Sale 181. Some of the marine territory underlain by the outer West Florida shelf and the West Florida slope is used for military operations. Lease Sale 181 (December 2001) was significantly reduced in size following political and military objections. Development of the Destin Dome 56 gas field, discovered 25 miles off the Florida Panhandle in 1995 and currently the largest gas field in the U.S. portion of the Gulf, is stalled by Florida.

The removal of these barriers and a massive educational campaign will be critical for opening the West Florida shelf and slope up to gas exploration.

The 2001 gas supply to U.S. consumers amounted to 17.6 Tcf, of which 14.5 Tcf originated from domestic production.

Sixty miles to the northeast of the mouth of Mobile Bay, over two Tcf of sour gas have been produced on shore on the Jay-Flomaton trend in Alabama and Florida, associated with condensate and light oil. Exploration of the Mobile Bay deep gas trend offshore Alabama has proven so far about eight Tcf of dry, sour gas reserves in state and adjacent federal OCS waters. That trend extends at least 40 miles to the east, beneath the northern West Florida shelf. There, 2.6 Tcf of dry, sour gas reserves have been established in the Destin Dome 56 field.

The federal Minerals Management Service has estimated that mean undiscovered, recoverable gas resources under the northern West Florida shelf, and the adjacent Mississippi-Alabama shelf, amount to over seven Tcf. The National Petroleum Council’s Committee on Natural Gas has concluded that 24 Tcf of currently for political reasons inaccessible gas resources exist beneath the northern West Florida shelf. An own assessment attributes to the northern West Florida shelf 10.4 Tcf of gas resources, in addition to the already established Destin Dome gas reserves.

The so far in assessments not yet considered outer central West Florida shelf and West Florida slope can probably contain 24.75 Tcf of gas resources, located beyond 100 miles from the Florida Peninsula coast.

A minor gas potential on the southern West Florida shelf is speculative.