An offshore oil and gas lease sale scheduled for Wednesday (Sept. 27) in the Gulf of Mexico’s (GOM) Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) must proceed as originally planned with all 73 million acres on offer, following a preliminary injunction granted by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced a preliminary notice of sale for Lease Sale 261 in March. Upon publishing the final notice in August, however, BOEM said it had withdrawn six million acres from the process, citing concerns about possible impacts on the endangered Rice’s whale.

In response, the State of Louisiana, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Chevron USA Inc. filed a lawsuit and a motion for...