The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is offering around 78.2 million acres of oil and gas exploration land for a region-wide Gulf of Mexico lease sale scheduled for March 2021, according to a press release.
Lease Sale 257, the first oil and gas lease sale of 2021, will be live-streamed from New Orleans. The sale will include approximately 14,594 unleased blocks, all of the available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Mike Celata, Director of BOEM’s Gulf of Mexico Region, said: “Despite circumstances imposed by the coronavirus, we are confident that industry remains interested in acquiring new leases to support their portfolios. The Gulf of Mexico is a world-class resource area that serves a key role in our nation’s energy security.”
All revenue generated from the lease sale will go towards supporting the treasuries of the Gulf Coast states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. For measure, in 2020 almost $353 million in revenue from oil and gas development in the Gulf was distributed to these states and programs.
The Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf covers about 160 million acres and is estimated to contain about 48 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of undiscovered technically recoverable gas.
