^UNC Sea Grant 



7- 10//L> 



orth Carrctfnra ST?ste Lfbrary 



Rafeigh 



February 1983 



Ooc* 



COAST 4 WATCH 



Oil and gas 



They may be hidden off the 

 coast of North Carolina. Oil com- 

 panies say that the odds of finding 

 them at all are slim. Even so, those 

 companies are gambling hundreds 

 of millions of dollars on leases. 

 Their geologists sniff oil in the 

 form of an ancient reef, buried 

 over a hundred million years ago. 

 The federal government is selling 

 chances at this reef to the highest 

 bidders. And map-makers have 

 drawn an unruly stretch of open 

 ocean into a checkerboard of leas- 

 ing tracts — a checkerboard upon 

 which the oil companies and the 

 government have already begun to 

 play. Test drilling may begin as 

 early as this year, on some tracts. 



Are there risks? Industry 

 representatives assure coastal resi- 

 dents that oil and gas won't dis- 

 rupt their lives or mar their 

 beaches. But state officials are 

 taking a hard look at some leasing 

 tracts nearest the shore — where 

 the drilling might be a little too 

 close for comfort. 



This month, in the first of a 

 two-part series, Coastwatch looks 

 at oil and gas exploration off North 

 Carolina — who's involved, what's 

 at stake, and what it is about our 

 Outer Continental Shelf that's at- 

 tracted all the attention. 



In the next issue, Coastwatch will 

 examine the risks of oil spills, and 

 what's being done to offset them. 

 We'll also take a look at how the 

 costs and benefits of offshore oil 

 and gas production might stack 

 up for North Carolina. 



Adapted from map by Minerals Management Service 



Tracts withdrawn, Sale 56 

 Proposed deletions, Sale 78 



Three-mile-square tracts for oil leasing: some are too near to suit state 



