LONDON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is no deterrent to major oil companies keen to tap into deep-water fields, investors said.
Washington imposed a moratorium on deep-water drilling after BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig caught fire and sank in April, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the industry.
A survey by investment bank Barclays Capital, however, indicates that major energy companies are planning to spend as much as $500 billion next year on oil and gas exploration. James West, an energy analyst at the bank, told The Wall Street Journal that spending on new energy efforts in 2011 should be 10 percent higher than in 2010.
"This is being driven by the appetite to find more oil, comfort that today's oil prices will be sustained and companies getting out of a hunker-down, recession mode," he was quoted as saying.
Chevron, one of the so-called supermajors, announced in early December that it was planning to spend lavishly on offshore projects off the coast of Australia and in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
"It doesn't slow us down because the demand is there and we need to harness the resources available to us," Chevron spokesman Kurt Glaubitz told the Journal.
