The U.S. Department of Energy closed a $480 million loan to the private, Texas-based Arena Energy to help boost oil and natural gas production in the Gulf, reports Reuters.
The project will modernize 22 offshore platforms off the coast of Louisiana, the department said. At peak production, the project is expected to add up to 38,600 barrels of oil per day and up to 77 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to US energy production. By comparison, the U.S. produces about 14 million barrels per day of crude.
It was DOE’s first closed loan supporting domestic oil and natural gas production, it said. The department’s loan office was established in 2005, under former President George W. Bush, a Republican, to aid companies developing emerging forms of energy that had trouble getting loans. Read more from Reuters.
