{"id":5837,"date":"2014-07-22T16:56:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T16:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/?p=5837"},"modified":"2021-05-19T01:04:12","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T01:04:12","slug":"ee-next-gulf-lease-sale-includes-plots-along-mexico-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/2014\/07\/22\/ee-next-gulf-lease-sale-includes-plots-along-mexico-border\/","title":{"rendered":"E&E: Next Gulf lease sale includes plots along Mexico border"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Nathanial Gronewold, E&E reporter<\/i><\/div>\n
Published: Monday, July 21, 2014<\/i><\/p>\n

HOUSTON — The federal government has put the oil and gas industry on
\nnotice to prepare for the next round of offshore lease bidding, to
\ncover waters off the coast of Texas.<\/p>\n

And for the first time, the government is accepting bids on leases for
\noffshore oil and gas prospects along the maritime border with Mexico.<\/p>\n

On Friday the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released details
\nof its planned sale of offshore leases in federal waters. The sale is
\nfor acreages in the western Gulf of Mexico, in the federal government’s
\nWestern Planning Area (WPA) for offshore energy development in the
\nGulf.<\/p>\n

“The decision to move forward with this lease sale follows extensive
\nenvironmental analysis, public input and consideration of the best
\nscientific information available,” acting Director Walter Cruickshank
\nsaid in a release.<\/p>\n

Over 20 million acres is up for grabs in sale 238, scheduled to be held
\nAug. 20 at the Superdome in New Orleans. The government’s last lease
\nround for the WPA was in August 2013 and netted the government a little
\nover $100 million.<\/p>\n

What makes this lease different is that it stretches far south to just
\nnorth of the U.S.-Mexico maritime border. Activity was forbidden in a
\nbuffer zone created around the international boundary pending the
\ncompletion of a treaty between the two nations clarifying how offshore
\nenergy exploration and production would be pursued in the Gulf’s
\nborderland.<\/p>\n

The U.S. and Mexico have since finalized a treaty on Gulf energy
\nexploration, so BOEM says it’s removing the prior restrictions in
\nplace. The offshore energy treaty with Mexico has now entered into
\nforce as of last Friday.<\/p>\n

“As such, whole and partial blocks in the 1.4-nautical mile buffer area
\nwill be offered for lease in WPA Sale 238,” the agency said in its
\npackage of details covering the drilling rights sale.<\/p>\n

The WPA is the least developed portion of the Gulf’s offshore drilling
\nindustry, with most activity found off the coast of central and
\nsoutheastern Louisiana. Though it is home to substantial numbers of
\nshallow-water operations, new leasing in this area is focused on
\ndeepwater and ultra-deepwater regions, in formations where companies
\nhave found success.<\/p>\n

The length of time that a lease can be held depends on the depth of the
\nwater column it’s lying in. Leases for exploring deepwater prospects
\nthat are more than 5,200 feet deep are good for 10 years. Standard
\nleases remain valid for five to seven years, but companies can earn
\nthree-year extensions if they spud a well in the acreage they are
\nholding before that lease expires.<\/p>\n

BOEM is almost halfway through its five-year lease sale schedule, which
\nis ending in 2017. After next month’s round the agency will hold six
\nmore lease sales for Gulf of Mexico acreage: three for the Central
\nPlanning Area, one for the Eastern Planning Area and two more for the
\nwestern Gulf off Texas.<\/p>\n

Offshore drillers are more active in the Gulf now than they were at the
\ntime of the 2010 Macondo well blowout and oil spill, when a drilling
\nmoratorium was put in place. With new production coming online this
\nyear and next, some analysts are predicting a sharp jump in Gulf oil<\/p><\/div>\n

output starting in 2015 (EnergyWire, July 14).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Special thanks to Richard Charter<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Nathanial Gronewold, E&E reporter Published: Monday, July 21, 2014 HOUSTON — The federal government has put the oil and gas industry on notice to prepare for the next round of offshore lease bidding, to cover waters off the coast of Texas. And for the first time, the government is accepting bids on leases for … Continue reading E&E: Next Gulf lease sale includes plots along Mexico border<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-policy","category-offshore-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6119,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5837\/revisions\/6119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}