I first came to Houston as a wide-eyed Brit in 1993, visiting like so many others to attend the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) and to learn more about what was going on in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM).

At that time the oil price was in the doldrums at $16 per bbl, a level it struggled to break out of until the end of the decade. As a result, the E&P industry in the North Sea and the U.S. threw itself into various cost-reduction initiatives, such as the U.K.’s Cost Reduction in the New Era program.

Sound familiar? Here we are more than two decades later and—although the oil price is at a much higher level—the cyclical nature of the offshore business once again sees it go through various belt-tightening measures.

But enough about that; plenty has been said on cost issues in recent months.

Let’s go back instead to that first trip to Houston, when I attended many presentations and briefings, including one on Shell’s pioneering Auger Field, the tension-leg platform that was in the final stages of preparation to start flowing oil the following year. There was a palpable sense of excitement at OTC about what was being done in the GoM on flagship projects like Auger.

Luminaries at OTC that year like Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and Matt Simmons of Simmons & Co. talked of the need for offshore oil and gas activity to grow at a “staggering rate” (according to Simmons) to keep the world’s economy running.

Fast-forward to 2014, and the industry has indeed done just that. Offshore activity and production continues to grow globally, but in the GoM it’s in a temporary lull. GoM federal offshore oil accounts for 23% of total U.S. crude production, with 1.3 MMbbl/d pumped offshore in 2013. But the lull has seen oil production fall from 584 MMbbl in 2010 to 447 MMbbl last year—a direct result of the Macondo disaster, with the drilling moratorium shelving dozens of projects for several years that would otherwise have come onstream.

The upside is that, as a consequence, crude production in the Gulf is shortly expected to start recovering as operators bring many of those projects to fruition.

At OTC this year I recognized a similar sense of excitement as in 1993, with the next wave of GoM projects coincidentally including another from Shell (Mars B) to help whet the appetite.

For those hungry to know more about the region’s resurgence, Hart Energy holds its first Offshore Executive Conference focused on the GoM Oct. 16 in Houston. The lineup of speakers is second to none, with participating companies including Energy XXI, BHP Billiton, Shell, Apache, Statoil, Fieldwood Energy, W&T Offshore, Cobalt International and Venari Resources. Take a look at offshoreexecutiveconference.com.

All are there because they are excited too, playing major roles in the GoM renaissance that’s now taking place. They’re sure to know a lot more about it than I do, so I guess I’ll be the wide-eyed Brit once more…

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