British energy major BP has received approval from the Trump administration to advance its Kaskida project in the Gulf of Mexico, a company spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement late on Friday.
The $5 billion investment would unlock 10 billion barrels of resources that BP has discovered in the Paleogene fields of the U.S. Gulf, the spokesperson said.
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s approval of Kaskida follows a year-long review of the company’s development plan, the statement said.
Bloomberg News first reported on Friday that the Kaskida project is scheduled to start crude production in 2029, adding this would be BP’s first new U.S. Gulf project since the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010.
The explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010 killed 11 rig workers and caused $70 billion in damages in the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
(Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman and Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue)