Lease

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) garnered almost $79 million from a recent natural gas and oil lease sale in New Mexico and Kansas. Forty-five parcels totaling 10,123 acres were auctioned across Cheyenne County, KS, and in Chaves, Eddy and Lea counties, NM. The New Mexico counties are in the heart of the Permian Basin’s…

An auction to offer some offshore oil and natural gas leases is planned at the end of this month for Alaska’s Cook Inlet.  The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is offering 958,202 acres off Alaska’s southcentral coast in a lease sale scheduled for Dec. 30.  The Inflation Reduction Act directed BOEM to hold the…

The Biden administration’s pause in conducting oil and natural gas lease sales on federal land is drawing more legal challenges, as plaintiffs argue that the lack of third quarter auctions was illegal. The Petroleum Association of Wyoming (PAW) and the Western Energy Alliance (WEA) this week filed a lawsuit against the Department of Interior (DOI)…

With Gulf of Mexico (GOM) activity accelerating, Australia’s BHP has given the green light to Shenzi North, a deepwater project it shares with Repsol SA. BHP earmarked $544 million in capital expenditures (capex) for the project. The operator took over as majority owner last year and holds a 72% stake. Repsol SA, with a 28%…

A federal offshore oil and gas lease set for August has been delayed for three months to assess the impact of Covid-19 on U.S. oil and gas markets. The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees the offshore auctions, rescheduled the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Lease Sale 256 to November. The…

A cadre of 30 oil and gas producers submitted 257 total bids in Wednesday’s Gulf of Mexico (GOM) region-wide auction, with the Mississippi Canyon drawing the highest bid and a unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc far and away outbidding everybody.

A federal district court judge in Nevada has ruled against two environmental groups that sued the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over its handling of a pair of 2017 oil and gas lease sales.

The November oil and gas lease sale held by the New Mexico State Land Office established an all-time record for revenue, reaching $43.2 million. The previous monthly record was $30.03 million set in July 2017. Katy TX-based Percheron Energy was the high bidder in sealed bids, obtaining 1,999.31 acres in Lea, Chaves and McKinley counties. All but one tract was sold, with one tract receiving no bids and a second tract withdrawn. Nine bidders combined for the total proceeds, with an average per-acre price of $5,431.88. Thirty-two bidders from eight states participated.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas has issued a final written finding for the Cook Inlet Areawide Oil and Gas Lease Sales from 2019-2028, declaring that “the potential benefits of lease sales outweigh the possible negative effects,” and that the lease sales are in the best interests of the state. The proposed sale area totals 3.9 million acres that includes 2.2 million acres of uplands in the Matanuska and Susitna River valleys and 1.7 million acres of tide and submerged lands in upper Cook Inlet from Knik Arm south to Anchor Point and Tuxedni Bay. There are 815 tracts ranging in size from 640 to 5,760 acres. The state is the predominant landowner in the sale area.