Jennifer Larino, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Jennifer Larino, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on April 07, 2015 at 10:47 AM

Eighteen of the country's 100 most prolific oil fields are in federal waters off the coast of Louisiana, according to the latest government data. While Louisiana has no top-producing oilfields onshore, five of the largest U.S. natural gas fields are located in the state.

The ranking, based on U.S. Energy Information Administration production and reserves data from 2013, the latest available, included a wave of new oil fields from the Eagle Ford Shale basin in Texas, an area at the center of the national hyadraulic fracturing, or fracking, boom.

Together, the nation's top 100 oil fields held 20.6 billion barrels of crude oil readily accessible by drilling. The fields accounted for more than half of the proven oil reserves in the country.

Some of the most prolific offshore oil fields are located in the well-explored Mississippi Canyon, Green Canyon and Walker Ridge regions in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana's coast.

Mississippi Canyon Block 778, the site of the Thunder Horse production platform about 150 miles southeast of New Orleans, ranked seventh among the top 100 oil fields, the highest out of the deepwater fields on the list.

Thunder Horse, discovered in 1999, is a joint venture of BP and ExxonMobil. It produced 15.8 million barrels of oil in 2013.

Atlantis, another BP oil field, ranked 10th. It is located about 130 miles off the Louisiana coast.

Louisiana also remains home to one of the largest natural gas fields in the country, though low gas prices have kept activity at a quiet hum in recent years.

The Haynesville Shale in northwest Louisiana produced 1.42 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2013, making it the fifth most prolific gas field in the country.

Production in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia as well as parts of the Barnett Shale in Texas outpaced the Haynesville.

Other top gas fields in the state are the Terryville field centered in Lincoln Parish, ranked 38th, and the Caspiana field in Caddo Parish, ranked 63rd.

See the Energy Information Administration's lists of the top 100 oil and gas fields in the country.

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