Last week, the Trump Administration proposed the most aggressive U.S. offshore oil and gas drilling plan since the Reagan Administration, offering to open more than 90 percent of the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for consideration of future exploration and development. The draft proposal—which will now undergo a public comment period and proposed program drafts that will take months—has drawn harsh criticism from the governors of the Pacific states and from Florida. Analysts, however, think that the opposition to offshore drilling in the West and East coast states is just one of the reasons why the oil and gas industry will not be jumping into a kind of oil drilling rush along the U.S. coasts. Oil firms will have to calculate if potential huge investments into exploration and into production infrastructure will yield any returns on investment in the prevailing oil prices years from now. In addition, companies will […]