Potential Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Social Cost of Carbon

This report evaluates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oil and gas produced on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the United States. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) believes this is the most comprehensive analysis conducted to date by a Federal resource management agency of the GHG emissions associated with the activities it authorizes. This report includes a methodology for analyzing the full lifecycle of activities resulting in the release of emissions, beginning with oil and gas exploration and production and ending with consumer use. BOEM intends to continue such public, full lifecycle reporting of GHG emissions in the future, with improvements garnered from feedback on this report and from other information. The report concludes that America's GHG emissions will be little affected by leasing decisions under BOEM's 2017-2022 OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program ("2017-2022 Program") and could, in fact, increase slightly in the absence of new OCS leasing. However, given analytical constraints, BOEM assumed that, for purposes of this analysis and the analysis that forms the basis of the 2017-2022 Program, foreign sources of oil will substitute for reduced OCS supply, and the production and transport of that foreign oil would emit more GHGs.