Interest in the final oil and natural gas auction in the Gulf of Mexico for the year – and potentially the only one until 2025 – was strong on Wednesday, with the highest bid total since 2015.

Following a series of delays because of lawsuits, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held Lease Sale 261. The auction offered almost 13,500 unleased blocks on nearly 73 million acres in the Western, Central and Eastern Planning Areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). 

Twenty-six exploration and production (E&P) companies submitted 352 bids totaling $442 million. High bids totaled more than $382 million for 311 tracts, with offered blocks drawing an average 1.13 bids each.

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