Bush set to sign Gulf of Mexico leasing bill into law Wednesday

Washington (Platts)--19Dec2006

President Bush is slated to sign into law Wednesday a bill passed by the
US House and Senate to open about 8.3 million acres of the Outer Continental
Shelf in the eastern-central Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas leasing and give
the Gulf states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas a 37.5% share of
new production revenues, the White House said Tuesday.

The tax and trade measure also includes incentives for renewable energy
producers, marginal oil and gas well developers and a host of non-energy
items.

The bill extends through January 1, 2009, a secondary tariff of 54
cents/gal on ethanol imports into the US. That 54-cent secondary tariff on
ethanol imports is designed to offset the 51 cent/gal blender's credit that is
applied to ethanol no matter its country of origin. The US ethanol industry
said that removing the tariff offset, which was set to expire on October 1,
2007, would have had dire consequences for the industry.

--Cathy Landry, cathy_landry@platts.com

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