BP to boost production in Gulf of Mexico as it expands Thunder Horse project

A British multinational oil and gas company has begun an expansion project in the Gulf of Mexico that is expected to increase its energy output by 25,000 barrels per day.

BP’s Thunder Horse south expansion project calls to increase oil and gas production to 400,000 barrels per day by the middle of the 2020's with 75% of the development owned by BP and 25% by ExxonMobil. 

This will mark BP’s fifth platform in the deepwater gulf with production at the new plant expected to begin in 2022. The other

four platforms are: Thunder Horse, Atlantis, Mad Dog and Na Kika.

Starlee Sykes, BP’s senior vice president of the Gulf of Mexico and Canada, said the expansion development was paramount to the company’s long term gameplan.

“This has been a pivotal year for our Gulf of Mexico business as we continue to start up new projects,” Sykes said. “Bringing high-margin, resilient barrels online in basins we know best is central to BP’s strategy.”

As the largest producer in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico, BP discovered Thunder Horse field in 1999, marking one of the company’s largest discoveries in that body of water.

Phase II of the Thunder Horse South Expansion is the decisive chief project that the company began this year.

BP hopes that the project will ultimately fund its renewable energy programs through the cheap extraction of high-quality crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico at Thunder Horse.

BP is not involved in the Houston CCS hub project, however, its partners on this development expansion, ExxonMobil, are.