Leases

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auctioned more than 1,184 acres last week for oil and natural gas development in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (WNF) and Louisiana’s Kisatchie National Forest (KNF), bringing in more than $1 million that is to be split between the federal and state governments.

A circuit court ruling issued last Friday regarding potential mining in Wyoming may provide ammunition to groups challenging environmental reviews of oil, gas and coal leases for not considering the impacts on climate change.

Hundreds of landowners from Northeast Pennsylvania asked a federal court this month to deny motions filed by Chesapeake Energy Corp., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Williams Partners LP and other companies to arbitrate their antitrust claims outside of court and dismiss parts of their complaint.

A billionaire Texas independent oilman from Fort Worth is suing the federal government over the cancellation of a long-term oil/natural gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine region in Montana, where the Obama administration in its final days bowed to concerns of the Blackfeet Nation.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Tuesday canceled the final two oil and natural gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area in northwest Montana on lands the Blackfeet Nation considers sacred.

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.