HOUSTON -- Two energy companies announced plans today to expand the Gulf of Mexico's offshore pipeline network to ultra-deep waters off Texas and Louisiana.

Enterprise Products Partners LP and Genesis Energy LP said they are proceeding on a joint venture to build a 150-mile pipeline to the Lucius oil and gas field under Keathley Canyon, which is believed to host hundreds of millions of barrels of recoverable crude. The area targeted is near the world's deepest drilled offshore well.

The companies said they have struck a deal with a consortium of six companies to move 115,000 barrels a day through the pipeline, which they say will come on line in mid-2014.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Apache Corp., Plains Offshore, and the U.S. arms of Petrobras and Eni will be the beneficiaries of the new development.

The pipeline will be owned and operated by the Southeast Keathley Canyon Pipeline Co. -- the name of the Enterprise and Genesis joint venture -- and will be tied to a floating production platform on more than 7,000 feet of water. The platform can move 80,000 barrels of oil and 450 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The pipeline would link the platform to a shallow-water pipeline network run by Enterprise that carries oil and gas to refineries and processing centers along the Gulf Coast. Enterprise CEO Michael Creel boasted in a release that the pipeline "will allow for the continued safe and reliable delivery of vital domestic crude oil supplies to Gulf Coast refineries."

The oil and gas industry is eager to resume operations in the Gulf since the lifting of the federal drilling moratorium put in place after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and oil spill in 2010.

The region lost roughly 11 offshore drilling rigs due to the temporary ban and has experienced trouble enticing them back from promising overseas offshore fields, but activity in the Gulf is perking up noticeably. For instance, last month, Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced the arrival to the Gulf of a brand new drilling rig from Singapore that is capable of operating in depths of up to 10,000 feet.

Also last month, the federal government hosted the first lease sale for new exploration zones that the industry has seen in 18 months. Though many company officials still complain of regulatory hurdles, officials at the Department of the Interior insist that the rate of issuing new offshore drilling and operating permits is back to where it was before the BP PLC oil spill.