Legal certainty provided by UNCLOS is not a necessary condition for development of oil and gas resources with US EEZ

Even though approximately 20 percent of the only area of U.S. ECS that has been made available for lease by BOEM is currently under an active lease, the U.S. oil and gas industry has supported and will likely continue to support U.S. accession to UNCLOS in order to achieve even greater “certainty.” That is their prerogative, of course, and achieving a maximum amount of certainty is a legitimate and desirable goal for a capital-intensive commercial enterprise. However, the successful delimitation of the ECS in the western gap and the U.S. government’s continuing lease sales of ECS blocks would appear to have provided the certainty necessary for several major U.S. and foreign oil exploration companies to secure leases for the development of the U.S. ECS.