The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is offering 78 million acres for a region-wide lease sale scheduled for 18 March, 2020.
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is offering 78 million acres for a region-wide lease sale scheduled for 18 March, 2020. The sale would include all available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Lease Sale 254, scheduled to be live streamed from New Orleans, will be the sixth offshore sale under the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Programme, which includes ten region-wide lease sales. Two Gulf lease sales are scheduled to be held each year and include all available blocks in the combined Western, Central and Eastern Gulf of Mexico Planning Areas.
The Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), covering about 160 million acres, is estimated to contain about 48 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas.
Licences resulting from this sale would include stipulations to protect biologically sensitive resources and mitigate potential adverse effects on protected species.
Terms include a 12.5% royalty rate for leases in less than 200 m of water depth and a royalty rate of 18.75% for all other leases.
