BOEM to broadcast next month’s Gulf of Mexico lease sale online

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Abigail Ross Hopper announced Friday that the bureau will offer 23.8 million acres offshore Texas for oil and gas exploration and development in a milestone lease sale that will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area.

Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 248, to be held on Aug. 24, 2016, in New Orleans, La., will be the first federal offshore oil and gas auction broadcast live on the internet. Through this approach, BOEM aims to promote greater government efficiency and transparency, eliminating the need for the public to physically attend the bid reading.

The auction will include approximately 4,399 blocks, located from nine to 250 nautical miles offshore, in water depths ranging from 16 ft to more than 10,975 ft. As a result of offering this area for lease, BOEM estimates a range of economically recoverable hydrocarbons to be discovered and produced of 116–200 MMbbl of oil and 538–938 Bcf of natural gas.

Sale 248 will be the eleventh offshore sale in the Gulf of Mexico and the final sale for the Western Planning Area, under the Administration’s Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017.

Leases issued from this sale will also be the first for which BOEM will accept requests for extended initial periods, and confirm whether the lessee has earned such extension, a duty previously performed by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.