sale

A severe snowstorm caused the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to cancel a scheduled oil/gas lease sale Tuesday, and the environmental groups’ “Keep It in the Ground” campaign canceled its protest rally at the Cheyenne, WY, event. Since last November, BLM has canceled three sales, the most recent coming last month in Montana (see Daily GPI, Jan 19). Increasingly, activists for the anti-leasing campaign show up to protest the auctions, and BLM officials have been scrambling to find larger places in which to hold the sales. After deferring 35 parcels from the sale, BLM said late last year that there would be 82 parcels totaling 82,118 acres offered. The sale will be rescheduled BLM officials said.

Range Resources Corp. said late Wednesday that it closed a deal to sell its coalbed methane assets in Virginia’s Nora Field, receiving $865 million in proceeds — $11 million less than what it announced when the company entered the agreement in November.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Utah has rescheduled its postponed November oil and natural gas lease sale for Feb.16, combining it with another sale already scheduled for that month.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Utah on Monday postponed a scheduled oil/natural gas lease sale set for Tuesday to allow more time to accommodate what the agency called a high level of public interest. Environmental groups applauded the action. “Dozens of citizens” were planning to protest the auction, they said.

Forty million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are scheduled to be on offer next March for oil and natural gas development, federal officials said Monday.

More than 21 million acres offshore Texas, all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Planning Area, are to be offered in a federal oil and natural gas lease sale in August.

Producers will have the opportunity in March to bid on 41.2 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the Central Planning Area of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the seventh auction under the current five-year Department of Interior leasing program.

An oil and natural gas lease sale by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the Ely District in northeast Nevada on Tuesday ran into apparent uncertainty about sage grouse habitat, with only one bid for a single 473-acre parcel.

The total of high bids in the latest northern Alaska oil and gas lease sales — $59.7 million — is the third-highest amount received in state history, according to officials. Competition for tracts was high, they said following the sales on Wednesday.