Deepwater Oil Drilling Accelerates as BP Disaster Fades Us Coast Guard/European Pressphoto Agency The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and sent millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. HOUSTON - Nearly two years after an explosion on an oil platform killed 11 workers and sent millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, deepwater drilling has regained momentum in the gulf and is spreading around the world. The announcement of an agreement late Friday by BP and lawyers representing individuals and businesses hurt by the disaster represented something of a turning of the page, though BP and its drilling partners continue to face legal challenges. After a yearlong drilling moratorium, BP and other oil companies are intensifying their exploration and production in the gulf, which will soon surpass the levels attained before the accident. Drilling in the area is about to be expanded into Mexican and Cuban waters, beyond most American controls, even though any accident would almost inevitably affect the United States shoreline. Oil companies are also moving into new areas off the coast of East Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. The reason for the resumption of such drilling, analysts say, is continuing high demand for energy worldwide. "We need the oil," said Amy Myers Jaffe, associate director of the Rice University energy program. The industry will have to improve and regulators will have to adjust, but the public will have to deal with the risk of drilling in deep waters or get out of their cars. Domestic oil exploration and gasoline prices are emerging as important issues in the presidential campaign. While candidates have sparred over the reasons for rising prices, there is little disagreement over the call for more drilling, onshore and offshore. "The price of gasoline is becoming a genuine crisis for many American families," said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a candidate for the Republican nomination, appearing on CNN Sunday morning. If it continues to go higher, it will crater the economy by August. President Obama, while in New Hampshire last Thursday, countered Republican charges that he was to blame for the rising pain at the pump. "We've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and approved more than 400 drilling permits since we put in place new safety standards in the wake of the gulf oil spill," Mr. Obama said. Exploration in deepwater fields remains dangerous because of high temperatures and high pressure when drilling 6,000 feet or more under the sea floor, and accidents continue to occur, most notably last year off the coasts of China and Brazil. But despite the risks, the deepwater drilling trend is spreading in the Mediterranean and off the coast of East Africa after a string of huge discoveries of natural gas. The new oil platforms will help supply growing demand in China, India and across the developing world. At the same time, turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East threatens operations in established fields that the world has relied on in recent decades. For a time after the BP spill, the drilling moratorium ordered by the Obama administration caused a decline in gulf production, but a reversal has occurred. Forty rigs are drilling in the gulf today compared with 25 a year ago. BP has five rigs drilling in the gulf, making it one of the most active drillers there. That is the same number BP operated before the accident, and it plans to have three more rigs drilling in the gulf by the end of the year. The Energy Department recently projected that gulf oil production would expand from its 2011 level of 1.3 million barrels a day, still nearly a quarter of total domestic production, to two million barrels a day by 2020. Last December, the Obama administration held its first offshore auction since the BP spill, granting leases for more than 20 million acres of federal waters - bigger than West Virginia. The leases are worth $330 million to the federal government and have the potential to produce 400 million barrels of oil. BP successfully bid for 11 of the 191 available drilling blocks. Environmentalists challenged the auction of exploration rights, so far unsuccessfully, which precedes applications and approvals for actual drilling permits. By the Obama administration's accounting, 61 drilling permits for wells in more than 500 feet of water were granted in the 12 months ending Feb. 27, only six fewer than were permitted in the same period in 2009 and 2010 before the BP explosion.