Auction

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Tuesday announced that it will hold an oil and natural gas auction on Nov. 7 in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), its second in less than a year, offering producers 400 tracts and an estimated 4.5 million acres to explore.

ConocoPhillips Wednesday bid $103.2 million for a tract in the western Gulf of Mexico (GOM), making it the highest bidder in the first auction held by the federal government in the region since the Macondo well blowout in 2010 (see Daily GPI, April 26, 2010).

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) generated nearly $1 million at an auction Tuesday from the sale of oil and gas leases on about 13,820 acres in Wyoming.

Mariner Energy Inc. has won a bidding auction to acquire the bankrupt operations of natural gas-weighted Edge Petroleum Corp. in a transaction valued at $215 million. The transaction, set to close by the end of the month, has been approved by the bankruptcy court in which Edge’s Chapter 11 case is pending, which will allow Mariner to build its presence onshore.

Mariner Energy Inc. has won a bidding auction to acquire the bankrupt operations of natural gas-weighted Edge Petroleum Corp. in a transaction valued at $215 million. The transaction, set to close by the end of the month, has been approved by the bankruptcy court in which Edge’s Chapter 11 case is pending, allowing Mariner to build its presence onshore.

Natural gas is being left out initially in California’s preliminary recommended auction for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions allowances as part of a proposed cap-and-trade system for lowering the energy sector’s carbon footprint in the state by 2020 under a climate change law’s mandate. However, there is no consensus on this or other issues, such as cost, treatment of public-sector utilities, and the needed safeguards and monitoring of the allowance trading market.

Results of the first geothermal lease auction by the Texas General Land Office released last week indicate a strong interest in developing the state’s geothermal resource for power generation. Texas is particularly attractive because in some cases geothermal energy can be captured from producing oil and gas wells, and abandoned wells offer a pre-existing tap to the earth’s heat.

Results of the first geothermal lease auction by the Texas General Land Office released Tuesday indicate a strong interest in developing the state’s geothermal resource for power generation. Texas is particularly attractive because in some cases geothermal energy can be captured from producing oil and gas wells, and abandoned wells offer a pre-existing tap to the earth’s heat.

Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. has put five West Virginia gas gathering pipelines, totaling about 428 miles, along with five compressor stations on the auction block. The company will open a data room on July 10 to provide information to natural gas producers, marketers and others who may be interested in buying any one or all of the five pipeline systems.