Beacon Offshore Energy has officially started oil and gas production at its long-awaited Shenandoah field in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the company confirmed Friday—marking a major milestone not just for Beacon, but for the ultra-deepwater Lower Tertiary Wilcox play.
Phase 1 production is expected to ramp up to 100,000 barrels per day in the third quarter. The floating production system, parked off the coast of Louisiana, has a nameplate capacity of 120,000 bpd and 140 million cubic feet of gas per day. Phase 2 is scheduled to come online by mid-2026, while a third development—Shenandoah South—is also now sanctioned, with first oil anticipated in 2028.
Though delayed by a month, the startup is a significant moment in the arc of U.S. deepwater development. Shenandoah was once a poster child of high-spec frontier drilling. First identified as a prize in the Lower Wilcox, Shenandoah sat dormant for years—until now.
What makes this so important? The Lower Wilcox Tertiary trend is widely regarded as the last great untapped oil province in the Gulf of Mexico. With sediment depths up to 35,000 feet and crushing pressures demanding rare 20,000 psi blowout preventers, only a handful of rigs in the world are capable of tapping these targets. Beacon’s Shenandoah project—rumored back in 2021 to command day rates near $490K for Transocean’s Deepwater Atlas—is one of the few live bets on this final frontier.
And it’s not just a technical victory. Shenandoah’s startup offers a counterpoint to the shale slowdown and an oil market increasingly hungry for new barrels. It also validates Beacon’s 2016 strategy—backed by Blackstone—to develop deep, complex, infrastructure-adjacent plays.
With legacy deepwater fields declining and exploration squeezed by ESG mandates, Shenandoah isn’t just another startup. It’s a bet that the Gulf still matters—and that the Lower Wilcox isn’t done making headlines.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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