A Gulf of Mexico (GOM) lease sale that was delayed by the Macondo well blowout last year is back on the calendar for December, the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) said last week.

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing last Friday BOEM Director Michael Bromwich told House members that the federal agency was “working very hard to do a lease sale in the western Gulf before the end of the year.” If it is delayed, “it would only slip a very little bit” to January. “We’ve been pushing very hard because we know how important it is to get that lease sale.”

The western leasing area of the GOM generally is viewed as less attractive commercially to oil and gas operators than tracts in the central GOM, where the Macondo well was being drilled.

A sale of central GOM leases remains on track to be completed before June 30, when the current five-year leasing plan is scheduled to expire, the BOEM chief said.

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