Lease

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) this week awarded 153 tracts to companies that bid in March to explore for oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), but 10 high bids were rejected.

At the first auction of federal offshore leases in Alaska’s Cook Inlet in nearly a decade, Hilcorp Alaska LLC submitted bids of more than $3 million on Wednesday, according to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

In some of the most remote areas of the state for oil/natural gas development, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) operations in northwest Colorado on Thursday sold oil/gas leases covering 63,268 acres, garnering $1.24 million in revenues.

Oil and natural gas producers will have their first opportunity in nine years to bid for blocks offshore Alaska’s southcentral coast, federal officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has clawed back about 43 square miles of public land in western Colorado from a planned June 8 oil and gas lease sale. Tracts in Grand County near Rocky Mountain National Park were dropped, with the sale now covering 115 square miles in parts of Jackson, Routt, Rio Blanco and Moffat counties. BLM Colorado officials said lawsuits had been filed against the sale by Grand County commissioners, a ranch, the Wilderness Society and others. The sale includes acreage in some of the state’s highest potential for oil and gas development, according to the Western Slope Chapter of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (WSCOGA). WSCOGA Executive Director David Ludlam said he hoped BLM “reduces the practice of deferring lease nominations for political reasons and instead leases new lands for exploration, knowing that environmental review and appropriate mitigation can and will be applied.” Political deferrals “dissuade investment” in future exploration on federal lands, he said.

Seventy-three million acres offshore Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas will be auctioned in August to kick off the 2017-2022 federal oil and natural gas leasing program, the Department of Interior said Monday.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has scheduled another competitive oil and gas lease sale for land in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest, a month after it leased about 682 acres there for roughly $1.7 million in a controversial auction.

The next Texas General Land Office (GLO) Winter Oil & Gas Lease Sale is Jan. 17. Participants bid for the right to explore for oil and natural gas on Permanent School Fund (PSF) property owned by the state. The company offering the highest up-front payment (commonly called a bonus) is awarded the lease. Tract information is now available on the EnergyNet website. The sale will be the fourth GLO lease sale to be held online. The third online lease sale, held last July, earned more than $98 million. In the first online lease sale in August 2015, PSF tracts of land brought in more than $20 million, which is about $1,500 per acre more than the previous traditional lease sale. The online lease sale in January 2016 brought in nearly $11 million for 4,393 acres, which is just under $2,500 per acre. Sales are held semiannually and available tracts may be nominated by contacting the GLO.

JERA Co. Inc. said its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo produced in the contiguous United States arrived at the Joetsu LNG Terminal of Chubu Electric Power Co. last Friday. It is the first Lower 48 U.S. LNG cargo to be delivered to Japan, the company said. JERA and Cheniere Marketing International LLP had entered into a sale and purchase agreement for the cargo, which was loaded onto the LNG vessel Oak Spiritat Cheniere Energy Partners LP’s Sabine Pass LNG Terminal in Louisiana on Dec. 7. The voyage to Japan via the Panama Canal took about one month. JERA said it believes the purchase of US LNG will contribute to a stable energy supply in Japan through the diversification of procurement regions and LNG price indices. JERA said it will establish an “LNG procurement portfolio that can flexibly respond to changes in the business environment by increasing its procurement ratio of LNG which is free from destination restrictions, through projects such as the Freeport LNG Project in [the United States].”