On Tuesday, BP revealed that it has made major oil discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico. It announced the discovery of 1 billion barrels of oil off the coast of Louisiana. The company announced the discovery another 400 million barrels off the coast of New Orleans.

From CNBC:

The British energy company has discovered 1 billion barrels of crude at an existing oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico. BP also announced two new offshore oil discoveries and a major new investment in a nearby field.

BP is the Gulf of Mexico’s biggest producer, and it’s making strides to hold that title.

BP now expects its fossil fuel output from the region to reach 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by the middle of the next decade. Today, it produces about 300,000 boepd, up from less than 200,000 boepd about five years ago.

On Tuesday, the company said it will spend $1.3 billion to develop a third phase of its Atlantis field off the coast of New Orleans. Scheduled to start production in 2020, the eight new wells will add 38,000 bpd to BP’s production at Atlantis. The decision comes after BP found another 400 million barrels of oil at the field.

BP made the massive 1 billion-barrel discovery at its Thunder Horse field off the tip of Louisiana.

BP credits new technology and data analysis for the discovery. For example, BP claimed that it used to take a year to analyze data from the Thunder Horse field. Now they can analyze the data in weeks.

BP is also expanding production in other fields in the Gulf. BP announced that it found oil at prospects near the Na Kika platform.

The increased oil discoveries are good news for the economy of Louisiana and the entire region. Ironically, these new finds may put more downward pressure on oil prices and temporarily harm Louisiana’s oil industry. But when the price of oil does rebound, Louisiana will benefit.

This is just the latest major domestic oil and gas strike in the U.S. Recently, new oil and gas strikes have been in Texas. The future is bright for domestic energy exploration.