Government, Exxon reach deal on disputed Gulf leases

[dipsydoodle]

(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp and the government struck a deal on Friday that would allow the company to move ahead with development of a field in the Gulf of Mexico estimated to yield tens of billions of dollars of oil.

Exxon sued the government last year after the Interior Department canceled three of five leases for what is called the Julia field.

"The settlement will allow Exxon Mobil to develop this very large, but technically challenging resource as quickly as possible using a phased approach," Exxon Mobil spokesman Patrick McGinn said in a statement.

In its lawsuit, Exxon argued that the department arbitrarily deprived the company of its rights under the canceled leases and took away Exxon's ability to produce a reservoir believed to hold billions of barrels of oil.

Reuters WASHINGTON | Sat Jan 7, 2012 10:04am EST http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/07/us-usa-exxon-lawsuit-idUSTRE80605X20120107

[2banon]

1. Bowing down to PTB, Obama's relection directly threatened by Oil Industry

Seems that I caught a headline a few days ago, something of a direct threat by Oil Industry to Obama and his relection.
Interesting timing wrt Iran as well. No surprise, just more evidence of who actually "runs the show". Certainly not the "elected" one.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. This whole thing was due the fields sitting unused

It costs the Treasury revenue when oil companies let leases such as this sit idle. Exxon had failed to provide a plan to begin producing oil from these fields and had filed a suspension of production, which would have given them more time before they had to produce some product. The government denied their request. Subsequently when the leases Exxon held on these came up, they were not going to be renewed by the government due to the lack of production. Long story short, Exxon sued and they just got their leases back in some sort of a deal with the government. One which is likely to include they begin to show positive movements toward developing these wells.

[2banon]

3. Interesting, that explains it.

Thanks for that, although the article made some indication to this, it didn't explain it as well as you just did.

Not that I support more drilling but if they already have the leases and they're just sitting idle, with every intention of drilling in the future.. then good on Obama.

[Scuba]

4. Any word on the royalties we'll collect, and how they compare to those Norway and others get?

[Gringostan]

5. The difference is that the Norwegian people own the resources...

The difference is that the Norwegian people own the resources and we Americans don’t. Our politicians sold out to the corporations that elected them.

[wordpix]

6. our pols are constantly giving the corpos land, leases to land and resources

makes me sick