73 million acre lease sale for GoM

New U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced that DOI will offer 73 million acres offshore from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas for oil and gas exploration and development. The proposed region-wide lease sale is scheduled for August 16, 2017, would include all available un-leased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Proposed Lease Sale 249, scheduled to be streamed live from New Orleans, will be the first offshore sale under the new Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-22. Under the new program, 10 region-wide lease sales are scheduled for the GoM. Two Gulf lease sales will be held each year and include all available blocks in the combined Western, Central, and Eastern Gulf of Mexico Planning Areas. Lease Sale 249 will include about 13,725 blocks, located from three to 230 miles offshore, in the Gulf’s planning areas in water depths ranging from nine to more than 11,115. As of March 1, about 16.9 million acres on the U.S. outer continental shelf are under lease for oil and gas development (3,194 active leases) and 4.6 million of those acres (929 leases) are producing oil and natural gas. More than 97 percent of these leases are in the Gulf of Mexico. (Source: Maritime Executive 03/08/17)