Offshore drilling on the Atlantic coast of the United States

In accordance with congressional restrictions and presidential orders, no federal leasing has taken place on the offshore Atlantic coast of the United States since the early 1980s.

The federal government had scheduled a lease sale for offshore Virginia, to take place in 2011, and in March 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intention to open the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic planning areas to oil and gas exploration.

In December 2010, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a ban on drilling in federal waters off the Atlantic coast through 2017.

Some gas discoveries were made by Tenneco, Texaco, and Exxon in shallow waters off New Jersey, but these were judged uneconomic at the time, and were never produced.

[13] Repsol returned in 2012 to drill three more dry holes in deepwater locations in partnership with the Norwegian company Statoil, then halted further attempts.

[20][21] The government of the Bahamas has indicated that applications for offshore drilling are on hold pending negotiations with Cuba, the United States, and the Turks and Caicos Islands on the exact boundaries between their respective Exclusive Economic Zones.

[27] In one area, five wells tested significant flows of gas from Jurassic rocks, at rates as high as 18.9 million cubic feet per day.

A 3-dimensional seismic survey was made over the area, but, in part due to falling gas prices in the 1980s, the lessee oil companies concluded that the tracts were uneconomic.

[28] In 2022, the Baltimore Canyon Offshore area was identified by researchers as a "carbon bomb," with the potential to produce 1.2 gigatons of CO2 emissions if its reserves were extracted and burnt.

[29] From 1976 though 1982, oil companies drilled ten exploratory wells in the U.S. portion of the Georges Bank Basin, about 120 miles (190 km) off the coast of Massachusetts.

[35] Farther northeast, major oil deposits have been discovered and are being produced in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin, offshore Newfoundland.

[36] The Obama administration announced in March 2010 that it intended to open oil and gas leasing in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic planning areas.

However, in May 2010, following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the administration cancelled the only scheduled Atlantic lease sale, for an area offshore Virginia.

[44] In May 2010, President Obama announced his decision to cancel the offshore Virginia lease sale, in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.