Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will open Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 218 in New Orleans today at 9 a.m. CST at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome with brief remarks. The sale, held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), has attracted 241 bids submitted by 20 companies on 191 tracts offshore Texas, compared to 189 bids submitted by 27 companies on 162 tracts during the previous Western Gulf Lease sale in August 2009. Blocks are located in federal waters from nine to more than 250 miles offshore, in water depths of about 16 feet (five meters) to more than 10,975 feet (3,346 meters). BOEM estimates that this sale could result in production of approximately 222 to 423 million barrels of oil and 1.49 to 2.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.