President Barack Obama will offer oil and gas companies new incentives to start production on undeveloped leases as part of a plan to cut U.S. dependence on imported oil, two administration officials told Bloomberg.

With rising energy prices triggered by turmoil in the Middle East putting pressure on consumers and threatening the recovery, Obama plans in a speech in Washington, D.C., today to lay out a blueprint to reduce U.S. oil imports by one-third in a little more than a decade, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity prior to Obama’s scheduled remarks today at Georgetown University.

“We still have a lot of work to do on energy,” Obama told Democratic Party supporters at a political event Tuesday night in New York. “Let’s increase domestic oil production. Let’s also invest in solar and wind and geothermal and biofuels, and let’s make our buildings more efficient and our farms more efficient.”
The Gulf of Mexico alone may have as much as 11.6 billion barrels of untapped crude — enough to meet U.S. demand for almost two years — and 59.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to a U.S. Interior Department report released yesterday. Less than half the leases on federal land are active, it said.

While the officials refused to detail the incentives Obama will outline, Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which oversees drilling, said on March 17 that the administration may trim the duration of leases to accelerate development or may reward companies that step up production with lower royalty rates.