Leases

Lucas Energy Inc. is acquiring a Texas Permian Basin leasehold position from an unnamed Houston-based oil and natural gas holding company. The deal marks the company’s entry into the hot West Texas/New Mexico play.

A focus of oil/natural gas industry and environmental tensions for years, the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming became a last stand for the Obama administration recently as U.S. Forest Service (USFS) officials took steps to protect 40,000 acres within the national forest from potential oil/gas leasing.

President Obama’s decision to place the entire Chukchi Sea and most of the Beaufort Sea off-limits to energy development is “stunning” and will deny economic opportunity, according to a trio of powerful elected officials, all of them Republican, representing Alaska.

The Department of Interior on Wednesday reached a milestone settlement with Devon Energy Corp. to cancel 15 oil and natural gas leases in northwest Montana, an area considered sacred by the Blackfeet Tribe.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has finalized three rules designed to ensure the accurate measurement, proper reporting and accurate recordkeeping of natural gas and oil produced from federal and Indian leases in order to ensure that royalties are correctly paid.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) has finalized its latest State Forest Resource Management Plan (SFRMP), releasing with it an oil and gas development position statement that reaffirms no new leases will be sold for state-owned land.

The turnaround in natural gas reserve prospects within the Mancos Shale of Colorado’s Piceance Basin gained further amplification Tuesday during testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Colorado on Tuesday released the final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) and proposed plan for the long-controversial Roan Plateau in Western Colorado that is highly coveted by producers and naturalists alike.

About one month after Royal Dutch Shell plc and other producers collectively abandoned millions of acres of leasehold in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, Spain’s Repsol SA has joined the exodus, relinquishing nearly 100 federal leases it acquired at auction in 2008.