Joe Biden drilling ban leaves majority of US production untouched

President Joe Biden’s temporary halt to drilling on federal lands leaves the vast majority of US crude production untouched, though it may be the death knell for the Gulf of Mexico’s already dwindling output.

Should the halt announced Wednesday become permanent, the US would stand to lose as much as 200,000 barrels a day of output by the end of this decade, according to Artem Abramov, head of shale research for Rystad Energy. It’s a small fraction of America’s roughly 11 million barrels a day of production.

“The region that would bear the brunt of this ban are the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico since it’s entirely owned by the government,” said Elisabeth Murphy, ESAI Energy LLC upstream analyst for North America. It would mean a 40% output drop for the Gulf by 2030, she said.