Bids

Prices, not protesters, were blamed for low turnout by industry Wednesday at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s two Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas lease sales.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office in Reno, NV, held an oil/natural gas lease sale involving more than 50,000 acres in two northern counties on Tuesday, and the market spoke loud and clear above the chanting of protesters from the national “Keep It in the Ground” campaign that wants to end leasing on public and tribal lands.

The Iowa Utility Board(IUB) said Monday it will decide Thursday on a proposal by Energy Transfer Partners LP(ETP) to build the $3.8 billion, 1,154-mile Dakota Access LLCoil pipeline from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota to a hub in Illinois (see Shale Daily,March 3). IUB members will review a draft order from their staff during closed deliberations leading up to Thursday afternoon’s public session. Regulators in North and South Dakota, and in Illinois, already have approved the line, so the IUB action is the last major hurdle for the ETP project that bids to eventually transport volumes approaching half of North Dakota’s current 1 million b/d daily output of Bakken crude.

Aubrey McClendon, 56, the former chief and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp., was killed Wednesday in a single-car crash, authorities said.

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Utah office in Salt Lake City said the results of its latest quarterly oil and natural gas lease sale showed significantly lower proceeds and activity than a year earlier.Separately, a previously scheduled auction in August has been canceled to combine with one planned in November.

The Bureau of Land Management's Utah office in Salt Lake City said the results of its latest quarterly oil and natural gas lease sale showed significantly lower proceeds and activity…

The total of high bids in the latest northern Alaska oil and gas lease sales — $59.7 million — is the third-highest amount received in state history, according to officials. Competition for tracts was high, they said following the sales on Wednesday.

More than 40 producers offered 383 bids with high bids totaling $850.8 million to secure leaseholds in the Central and Western Gulf of Mexico (GOM), mostly for deepwater prospects, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Wednesday. However, there were no bids in the Eastern GOM auction, the first in eight years.

More than 40 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), with oil and natural gas leaseholds offered in the Central and Eastern planning areas, are going to be auctioned on March 19 in New Orleans, said the U.S. Department of Interior.