BP’s bids for its first new U.S. offshore leases in two years may not add any barrels of production until the middle of the next decade. The owner of the deep-water Macondo well that spewed millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico during a 2010 blowout was the highest bidder on 24 blocks offered for lease by the Interior Department, Tommy Beaudreau, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management , said in a conference call yesterday. The tracts are part of an area twice the size of Maine that attracted more than $1 billion in bids from oil and natural gas producers. It was only last week that BP received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s blessing to resume competing for federal drilling rights after the London-based company was barred from winning new leases in 2012 because of safety concerns. Although BP has regained credibility with […]