While there has been increasing interest in the Bay 

 City and Garden Banks deepwater areas, the major activity is 

 currently occurring in the Mobile South 1 and 2 areas on the 

 slope (see Figure 2.1). What is considered the most signi- 

 ficant of the 1975 Louisiana offshore discoveries was Shell's 

 Prospect Cognac in the Mobile South 2 area. In addition to 

 confirming a find on their own tract, a directional well 

 drilled by Shell discovered oil and gas in an adjoining block 

 owned by Amoco. In addition to these dsicoveries, Atlantic- 

 Richfield discovered oil and gas about 6 miles west of 

 Shell's Prospect Cognac, Gulf Oil Company has had strikes to 

 the south and east of Prospect Cognac, and more recently 

 (1976) , Placid had a strike 17 miles south of the Shell find. 

 The Placid oil strike is in 1,796 feet of water, a record 

 for the Gulf of Mexico (Leblanc, 1976: 81-90). Of course, 

 production in these deepwater areas will require new tech- 

 nology and this is discussed later in this chapter. 



The final major theme involving the potential of the Gulf 

 as a petroleum-producing region is the emergence in 1975 of 

 developmental activity in existing fields as the major activity 

 of the oil companies. During exploratory and developmental 

 operations, a total of 907 OCS wells were drilled offshore 

 of Louisiana and Texas in 1975 (Table 2.2). The number of 

 developmental wells drilled in Louisiana (629) far exeeded 

 the number of exploratory wells -- wells in previously 

 unexplored areas -- (131). In Texas, which has not been 

 developed as extensively as Louisiana, exploratory drilling 



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