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New Orleans, LA, United States (AHN) – Oil company Chevron announced plans to drill new oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, which was only a few days after the government lifted the ban on drilling it imposed in the wake of the disastrous BP Deepwater Horizon oil well leak.

The BP oil leak began in April and continued gushing oil into the Gulf for 6 months as BP was unable to stop the leak, which raised safety concerns about oil rigs in deepwater areas.

Chevron plans to explore the Jack and St Malo fields, located some 280 miles south of New Orleans, in water depths of 1.3 miles. Chevron estimates the fields contain about 500 million barrels of oil.

First production of the wells is expected in 2014, with production of 170,000 barrels of oil and 42.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The U.S. consumes about 21 million barrels of oil daily. Therefore, the fields Chevron is exploring contain enough oil to last U.S. consumers for about 23 days at current consumption.

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