02/13/2019

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to hold a Gulf of Mexico-wide oil and gas lease sale in March 2019 that will include all available unleased areas in federal waters covering about 78 million acres.

Lease Sale 252 will include about 14,696 unleased blocks in a range of 3-231 miles offshore across the gulf’s western, central, and eastern planning areas in 9-11,115 ft of water.

Excluded from the lease sale are blocks subject to the congressional moratorium established by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006; blocks adjacent to or beyond the US Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap; and whole blocks and partial blocks within the current boundaries of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.

This will be the fourth offshore sale in the Department of Energy’s Outer Continental Shelf 2017-22 program, which plans a total of 10 sales.

BOEM estimates the upcoming sale contains 48 billion bbl of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and 141 tcf of undiscovered technically recoverable gas.

All terms and conditions for Lease Sale 252 are available on the BOEM web site.