HOUSTON, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Monday that new natural gas production fields in the U.S. Federal Gulf of Mexico (GOM) may slow or reverse the long-term decline of natural gas production in the region.

According to EIA, marketed natural gas production in GOM averaged 2.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) through August 2018, accounting for only 4 percent of total U.S. production. In 1997, when EIA began collecting GOM production data, production averaged 14.3 Bcf/d, accounting for 26 percent of the country' s total annual marketed natural gas production.

The decline in GOM natural gas production occurred as the number of producing natural gas wells in the GOM reduced, falling from 3,271 in 2001 to 875 in 2017. The technology and expertise required to produce oil and natural gas from the seabed is expensive and specialized, and costs of production platforms can often exceed one billion dollars.

With the growth in exploration and production activities in shale gas and tight oil formations, onshore drilling became more economic relative to offshore drilling, explained EIA.

The situation may be changed as ten new natural gas production fields are expected to start producing natural gas in 2018 and another 8 are expected to start producing in 2019, according to information reported to the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Being the first ones in the GOM since 2016, those projects starting in 2018 and 2019 have a combined natural gas resource estimate of about 836 billion cubic feet, said EIA.