US to Open Bids for Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said it is set to conduct a Gulf of Mexico Western Planning Area Lease Sale 246 on Wednesday, August 19 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. Doors open at 7:30 and bid reading begins at 9 a.m. CDT. 

 

As part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to continue to expand safe and responsible domestic energy production, Lease Sale 246 is the eighth offshore sale under the Administration’s Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017 (Five Year Program). The first seven sales in the Five Year Program offered more than 60 million acres for development and garnered more than $2.9 billion in bid revenues. 

 

The sale, which offers 21.9 million acres for oil and gas exploration and development offshore Texas, is open to the public.

 

Lease Sale 248 offers all unleased and nonprotected areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area, including 4,083 tracts from nine to more than 250 miles off the coast, in water depths ranging from 16 to more than 10,975 feet (five to 3,346 meters). 

 

When bidding closed today, five companies had submitted 33 bids on 33 tracts for Western Sale 246.