GoM Lease Sale 249 bidders still focused on deepwater

AUGUST 16, 2017 — U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke today announced that the region-wide Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 249 generated $121,143,055 in high bids for 90 tracts covering 508,096 acres in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. A total of 27 companies participated in the sale, submitting 99 bids totaling $137,006,181. The sale offered the largest amount of acreage in the history of the federal offshore program in the Gulf, including parcels offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Platts said the sale “was not a barn-burner, but it did show a measure of competitive bidding in the deepwater and even boasted two eight-figure bids and dozens more that topped $1 million each.”

Platts says the “sale appeared to highlight majors’ preferences for known deepwater areas, since shallow-water bidding accounted for a scant 10 blocks and offers received for these were mostly under $200,000 each.”

The sale had included a “sweetener” to encourage shallow water tract bids in the form of a 12.5 percent royalty rate for leases in less than 200 meters of water depth, compared with 18.75 percent for all other leases

National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) President Randall Luthi said the results “reflect market realities,” but noted that they also “demonstrate the offshore oil and gas industry’s commitment to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, even with extended low commodity prices and lingering regulatory dysfunction.”

“Responsible offshore oil and gas development is critical to America’s economic and energy security,” he said. “We applaud the companies who submitted bids today and congratulate the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on a successful sale.”

Access the lease sale statistics HERE