Boem

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said it plans to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposed offshore oil and gas lease sale to be held next year for tracts offshore Alaska.

The Interior Department is planning yet another region-wide lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) next March, when it plans to auction about 78 million acres for oil and natural gas development.

Nearly 78 million acres are on offer for oil and natural gas development offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida in a federal auction to be held in August, the Department of Interior said Friday.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is calling for information and nominations by April 30 for a proposed oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea Planning Area in 2019.

Alaska’s onshore and offshore collectively hold about 17.6 billion bbl of oil and more than 50 Tcf of natural gas, according to an updated assessment conducted by Department of Interior (DOI) agencies, which also reported a nearly six-fold increase in onshore oil resources.

In the first lease sale covering the entire Gulf of Mexico (GOM) since 1983, the Lower Tertiary Trend, an intriguing deepwater play that has yielded big-time discoveries, captured most of the attention.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) gave conditional approval for a subsidiary of Italy’s Eni SpA to drill four exploratory wells on an artificial island in the Beaufort Sea, on leases the company acquired back in 2005.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is proposing to reduce the royalty rate for Gulf of Mexico (GOM) oil and natural gas leases sold during the August federal sale to 12.5% from 18.75%.

Following aseries of initiatives outlined on Thursday by President Trump, the Department of the Interior (DOI) readied a public comment period for a new five year offshore leasing program that would open more of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to oil and gas drilling.