Wyoming’s Bureau of Land Management garnered more than $6.17 million for leasing rights and rental fees offered at its bimonthly federal oil and gas lease auction held in Cheyenne Aug. 1. That marks a more than 40% increase over proceeds from the state’s previous sale in June. By comparison, the June sale garnered $4.4 million. The state gets half of the sale proceeds.

Oil and gas leases on 10 parcels in the Bridger-Teton National Forest sold for $905,852. Bids totaling nearly $5.93 million ranged from the federally mandated minimum of $2 per acre to a high of $2,700 per acre. Successful bidders also pay $130 per parcel as an administrative fee and yearly rental of $1.50 per acre. It is the U.S. Forest Service that decides which of its parcels will be sold at BLM lease sales.

Overall, 147,428 acres in 196 parcels were leased. Parcels that didn’t receive bids at auction are available non competitively for the yearly rental fee and a $335 administrative fee.

Oil and gas operations on BLM-administered public lands and federal mineral estate in Wyoming produced more nearly 29.82 million bbl of oil and more than 1.41 Tcf of gas and generated about $799.22 million in federal royalties last year. Half of the payments were disbursed within Wyoming.

The average for competitive and noncompetitive lease sale receipts has been $4.69 million since March 1988. December 1998 saw record sale receipts of $15.7 million, Rob Coleman, a petroleum engineer in the BLM’s Wyoming state office, told NGI. That was back when producers were getting wise to all the coalbed (CBM) methane in the Powder River Basin, he explained.

Since then sales receipts have ranged between about $2.5 million and $11.5 million, with receipts since mid-2004 ranging between $4 million and about $11 million, according to BLM figures.

Wyoming’s oil production peaked in the early 1970s, but natural gas production began trending upward in the 1950s. With the exception of small hiccups in the mid-1970s and mid-1980s it’s been climbing ever since and is currently a little more than 2 Tcf.

Ranked by marketed production, Wyoming passed New Mexico to take the No. 3 spot behind Texas and Oklahoma earlier this year (see NGI, May 1). The state’s marketed production was 1,501,823 MMcf in 2005, just behind Oklahoma at 1,536,371 MMcf and a distant third to Texas at 4,774,340 MMcf.

According to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the Powder River Basin is the most prolific gas field in the state, accounting for 16.8% of production in 2005. It is followed by Jonah, 13.3%; Pinedale, 11.3%; Fogarty Creek, 8.3%; and Madden, 8.2%. The remainder is composed of numerous comparatively small fields. Wyoming’s Sublette County produces the lion’s share of gas, 40.7%.

Wyoming’s top five gas producers and share of production last year were EnCana, 13.24%; Exxon Mobil, 12.24%; Burlington Resources, 8.28%; Chevron, 7.95%; and BP America, 7.91%.

The next sale will be Oct. 3 in Cheyenne.

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