First offshore lease sale set since Deepwater Horizon disaster

The Department of Interior says it has set a December date for the next Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and natural gas lease sale—the first such sale since the Deepwater Horizon explosion triggered the BP oil spill in April 2010. The Dec. 14 sale will take place in New Orleans at the Superdome and will include all the unleased areas in the Western Gulf Planning Area off the Texas shore. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says oversight of deepwater drilling has been strengthened and the industry has improved its ability to contain a subsea blowout and respond to a spill. The sale will cover 3,913 unleased blocks covering more than 21 million acres. The leases are located between nine and 250 miles offshore and in water depths from 16 feet to more than 10,975 feet. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management estimates the lease sale could result in the production of 222 million to 423 million barrels of oil and 1.49 to 2.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Officials say the minimum bid for leases in water depths of 1,312 feet and greater will go up from $37.50 to $100 an acre. Raising the minimum bid will prevent leases from being sold and left inactive. Officials say that leases sold for less than $100 an acre in the past 15 years mostly went untouched. The minimum bid for leases in shallower water will remain at $25 per acre.