The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) received 380 bids on 19 Mar 2014, for 326 blocks in the central Gulf of Mexico, totaling more than US$850 million.
Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 231 attracted operators to bid on almost 40 million acres, the most popular being the deep water and ultra-deepwater regions. Blocks in more than 1600m water depth received 108 bids.
Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas was top bidder, with 16 bids totaling $321.44 million. The company’s highest bid went on Atwater Valley Block 198, which received the most bids of all blocks offered.
Supermajors Chevron and Shell placed the single highest bids for acreage in the region. Chevron put up $63.26 million for Mississippi Canyon Block 475, while Shell offered $43.5 million for DeSoto Canyon Block 354.
BP placed 24 bids, totaling $41.6 million— this follows a recent agreement reached between the firm and the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) allowing BP to again bid on deepwater leases after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident.
Read more: http://www.oedigital.com/component/k2/item/5226-bp-cleared-to-enter-gom-contracts
Cobalt International and Total E&P each placed 44 bids, totaling $26.6 million and $17.2 million, respectively.
Other high bidders include:
Lease Sale 231 comprised 7511 unleased blocks in acreage about 3230mi offshore Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
The BOEM estimates that Lease Sale 231 could net 1 billion b/o and 4Tcf of natural gas in production.
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