BOEM opens bids for GoM oil and gas lease sale

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will conduct Gulf of Mexico Western Planning Area Lease Sale 246 on Wednesday at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. Doors open at 7:30 and bid reading begins at 9:00 AM CDT.

The sale, which offers 21.9 million acres for oil and gas exploration and development offshore Texas, is open to the public. BOEM Gulf of Mexico Acting Regional Director Michael Celata will announce the results of the sale.

Lease Sale 246 is the eighth offshore sale under the Administration’s Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017 (Five Year Program). The first seven sales in the Five Year Program offered more than 60 million acres for development and garnered more than $2.9 billion in bid revenues.

Lease Sale 246 offers all unleased and non-protected areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area, including 4,083 tracts from nine to more than 250 miles off the coast, in water depths ranging from 16 ft to more than 10,975 ft.

When bidding closed Tuesday, five companies had submitted 33 bids on 33 tracts for Western Sale 246.