The Minerals Management
Service announced today the availability of the Final Notice of Lease
Sale 197, an offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Eastern Gulf of
Mexico, scheduled for March 16, 2005. This lease sale is the third
Eastern GOM Outer Continental Shelf lease offering in the last five
years. The configuration is the same as MMS Eastern GOM Lease Sales
181 and 189, held in December 2001 and December 2003, respectively.
The lease sale area encompasses the unleased
blocks in an area of the Eastern GOM OCS Planning Area. The area is
directly south of Alabama. These 124 unleased blocks cover about
714,240 acres and are located from 100 to 196 miles offshore in water
depths of 1,600 to more than 3,425 meters. Estimates of undiscovered
economically recoverable hydrocarbons in this proposal range from 65
to 85 million barrels of oil and 0.265 to 0.34 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas.
This final notice, published today in the
Federal Register, includes the continuation of recently
adopted price thresholds, as follows:
In addition, the following provision has been
recently revised for this final notice of sale:
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In accordance with regulations at 43 CFR, part
42, subpart C, the lessee shall comply with the U.S. Department of
the Interior's nonprocurement debarment and suspension requirements
and agrees to communicate this requirement to comply with these
regulations to persons with whom the lessee does business as it
relates to this lease by including this term as a condition to enter
into their contracts and other transactions. This agreement will
be evidenced by language prepared by MMS through an Addendum included
in each lease resulting from this lease sale.
As a further incentive towards meeting our
Nation's energy needs and increasing domestic natural gas and oil
production, a royalty suspension of 12 million barrels of oil
equivalent for a lease in water depths of 1,600 meters or deeper has
been continued for this sale.
Statistical Information (Lease Sale 197):
Size: 124
unleased blocks; 714,240 acres
Initial Period: 10 years
Minimum Bonus Bid Amount: $37.50 per acre or fraction thereof
Rental/Minimum Royalty Rates: $7.50 per acre or fraction
thereof
Royalty Rates: 12-1/2%
Royalty Suspension Area: A royalty suspension of 12 million
barrels of oil equivalent will apply to all leases in this sale.
The Final Notice of
Lease Sale 197 will be posted on the
MMS Gulf of Mexico
website. In addition, copies of the document are available from the
MMS Gulf of Mexico Regional Office, Public Information
Unit, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123.
Telephone (504) 736-2519, toll free 1-800-200-GULF.
The MMS, part of the
U.S. Department of the Interior, oversees 1.76 billion acres of the
Outer Continental Shelf, managing offshore energy and minerals while
protecting the human, marine, and coastal environments through
advanced science and technology research. The OCS provides 30 percent
of oil and 23 percent of natural gas produced domestically, and sand
used for coastal restoration. MMS collects, accounts for, and
disburses mineral revenues from Federal and American Indian lands,
with fiscal year 2004 disbursements of around $8 billion and more than
$143 billion since 1982. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, which
pays for acquisition of state and federal park and recreation land,
gets nearly $1 billion a year.
