And will push the current leaders - Russia and Saudi Arabia. At the very least, all this is included in the plans of US President Donald Trump, diligently trying to fulfill his own promises, generously distributed to the population before being elected president. The fact that Trump does not even joke can be evidenced by the draft published by the Office of Ocean Energy Management of a plan for the allocation and lease of sites on the American shelf for the exploration and production of oil and gas. The program is scheduled for 2019-2024. In scale, it exceeds the previous program approved by Barack Obama for 2017-2022. five times. In the course of its implementation, until 2024. US oil and gas companies will be provided 47 sites with a total area of ??4 million square meters. km, with total reserves of 90 billion barrels of oil and 319 trillion cubic meters of gas. Auction for the right to lease plots will begin in 2019 and will last until 2023. As a result, almost all the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico will be provided for oil and gas production. Only a small part of the American shelf of the North Aleutian Basin off the coast of Alaska remains untouched. According to Trump himself, the goal of the program on the one hand is to strengthen the US position as a world leader in energy, on the other - to maintain low energy prices, for the sake of "well-being of American households". The proposed plan for the transfer of the American shelf to oil companies is part of the energy security strategy adopted by the White House shortly after Trump's victory in the presidential election. According to the US Interior Minister Ryan Zinke, the transfer of almost the entire US shelf to oil production is necessary in order to "make the US the largest energy superpower". Being net importers of oil, the US took up the development of oil and gas production relatively recently. But thanks to the development of shale technologies, over the past 11 years they have been able to double their own production volumes, which reached the end of 2017. 9.782 million barrels per day. According to calculations by the US Department of Energy, the yearly production will have to increase to 10.23 million barrels of oil per day, which will outstrip Saudi Arabia. By 2025, according to the forecasts of the International Energy Agency, oil and gas condensate production will reach 16.9 million barrels per day. This will allow the US to consolidate its status as the absolute leader in the energy market. How feasible are the grandiose plans of the American president? A clear and unequivocal answer to this question does not exist. On the one hand, the idea of ??turning the US into an oil empire has every chance of finding a great popularity in the country.
Long-term restrictions on oil production in the country led to an increase in its dependence on external suppliers, which over time began to run counter to the political line of the White House. The acquisition of oil independence unleashes the hands not only of American politicians, but also largely of American business, as it helps to reduce its costs. On the other hand, the massive cultivation of oil fields along the entire coast of the US is not encouraging in most coastal states. Resolutely against the project are state authorities on the Pacific coast, as well as Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. Americans well remember the tragic consequences of the accident on the oil platform of BP in the Gulf of Mexico, which turned into an ecological catastrophe on a continental scale.
Strangely enough, not amused by Trump's idea and many American oilmen. "This decision Trump once again shows his desire to jump higher than his head, to show their leadership positions," explained the "Utra" leading analyst of the company Amarkets Artem Deev. - The increase in the number of drilling rigs for oil and gas production will help reduce the price of oil and gas. Such a decision jeopardizes not only the world oil and gas market, but, above all, beats on American companies, many of which will not withstand a low price and will be forced to cease their activities ".
It should also be borne in mind that the planned changes require a considerable amount of time. Only the allocation of sites will be held from 2019 g. to the 2023rd. After that, it will take time for additional exploration of the reserves, the search for financing and the start of production.
As a result, the whole technological cycle can drag on for years.
Meanwhile, in the modern world, the development and search for alternative energy sources are actively pursued, and in a number of countries, including the US itself, tangible progress has been made in this direction.
All this means that in three to five years the general need for oil and gas in the most developed countries will not start to grow, but decline. Moreover, the demand for hydrocarbon fuel may begin to decline in the US itself.
Of course, talking about the complete disappearance of the demand for oil and gas in the next 15-20 years is useless to say, but also so high, as today the prices for hydrocarbons are unlikely to be.
In turn, offshore mining is one of the most expensive technologies, compared to production on land and even with shale technologies.
From all this, we can conclude that Trump's grandiose idea, designed to turn the US into a major world gas station, through the development of oil and gas production on the American shelf, looks hopelessly belated.
Undoubtedly, the extraction of hydrocarbons on the shelf of both oceans washing the United States will sooner or later start. But this is unlikely to radically change the global energy trends aimed at the future. In them, oil and gas are not allotted much space.