With oil and natural gas prices far below those from a year ago, energy companies put up $703 million in high bids for offshore tracts in the central Gulf of Mexico.
Last year’s sale involving federal waters off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama yielded $3.67 billion in winning bids. But oil and gas prices also were roughly twice the level they’re at currently.
Still, some prospects received large bids in this year’s sale: a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell put up $65.6 million, the highest single bid on a tract.
As with recent central Gulf sales, most of the bidding was concentrated on shallow-water prospects where natural gas can be found and on tracts in deeper Gulf waters that can take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.
