Moffett believed that by using new seismic tools and drilling techniques the company might discover deeper and larger pools of gas under the now-exhausted shallow pools of oil and gas.
In the last couple of years, Moffett has returned his attention to the shallow Gulf of Mexico to pursue his belief that there is significant gas to be found below shallow fields that have previously been discovered and produced to the point of exhaustion.
The risks of a spill are lower because the target is primarily gas, and the shallow water depth (approx. 100 ft) allows the blowout preventer to be located on the rig at the surface.
Stone Energy (SGY), which is headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana, is drilling several deep and ultradeep wells in Vermilion and Cameron parishes in the belief that gas-bearing reservoirs below the shallow Gulf bleed onshore, and that onshore drilling offers a way to tap an abundant hydrocarbon resource without incurring the considerable expenses of underwater operations.
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The Texas Railroad Commission, using chemical fingerprinting, maintains that the EPA is wrong and that the gas seeped into the well from a shallow formation a few hundred feet beneath the surface, much closer to the water wells.
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Shallow-water wells, he said, usually produce gas, not oil, lessening the chance of a spill.
The plan is to keep gobbling up old shallow fields, using new technology to get more oil and gas out of them, all the while drilling deeper in search of the motherlode.
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McMoRan and Energy XXI are working furiously to unlock the huge gas discoveries they have made in the Gulf of Mexico Shallow Water Ultra Deep play.
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Mr. Moffett has long believed that the shallow waters of the Gulf, though widely considered a spent energy source, have phenomenal deposits of natural gas far beneath the pincushion of drilling sites from earlier decades.
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Located in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, these wells like Davy Jones and Blackbeard have found massive amounts of natural gas.
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