Gulf Of Mexico Central Planning Area News

Despite the continued depressed price of oil and gas, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) via Director Abigail Ross Hopper announced that BOEM will offer 40 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for oil and gas exploration and development in sales that will include all available unleased areas in the Central and Eastern Gulf of Mexico Planning Areas. Proposed Gulf of Mexico Central Planning Area Lease Sale 241 and Eastern Planning Area Lease Sale 226, scheduled to take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, in March of 2016, will be the ninth and tenth offshore sales under the Administration’s Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017 (Five-Year Program).

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed its required evaluation of bids to ensure that the public receives fair market value for tracts leased as part of the Gulf of Mexico Central Planning Area Oil and Gas Lease Sale 235. The sale held on March 18, 2015, made 7,788 unleased blocks covering about 41.2 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama available for lease. After extensive economic analysis, BOEM awarded 161 leases on tracts covering 923,711 acres to the successful high bidders who participated in the sale. The accepted high bids are valued at $533,090,640.

As part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to continue to expand safe and responsible domestic energy production, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) today announced that it will hold Gulf of Mexico Central Planning Area (CPA) oil and gas lease sale 231 in New Orleans on March 19, 2014. The sale is the second CPA lease sale and the fourth overall sale under the 2012 – 2017 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Natural Gas Leasing Program. The auction will offer 39 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, include all available unleased areas in the CPA.