November lease sale to offer all unleased acreage in western GOM
WASHINGTON –Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Tommy P. Beaudreau announced that BOEM will offer more than 20 million acres offshore Texas for oil and gas exploration and development in a lease sale that will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area.
Proposed Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 229, scheduled to take place in New Orleans on November 28, 2012, will be the first offshore sale under the Administration’s new Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017 (Five Year Program).
The sale will include approximately 3,800 blocks, covering roughly 20.5 million acres, located from 9 to 250 miles offshore, in water depths ranging from 16 to more than 10,975 ft. The agency estimates the proposed lease sale could result in the production of 116 to 200 million bbl of oil and 538 to 938 Bcf of natural gas.
Earlier this month, BOEM completed a Final Environmental Impact Statement with analysis to support decision-making for this and other Western and Central Gulf of Mexico lease sales scheduled as part of the next Five Year Program.
07/23/2012