U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has announced the Department is proposing the largest oil and gas lease sale ever held in the United States.
The proposal includes approximately 77 million acres in federal waters off the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The proposed region-wide lease sale is scheduled for March 2018 and includes all available unleased areas on the Gulf’s Outer Continental Shelf, surpassing last year’s region-wide lease sale by about 1 million acres.
“In today’s low-price energy environment, providing the offshore industry access to the maximum amount of opportunities possible is part of our strategy to spur local and regional economic dynamism and job creation and a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy dominant,” said Zinke. “And the economic terms proposed for this sale include a range of incentives to encourage diligent development and ensure a fair return to taxpayers.”
The sale is part of the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017–2022, a five-year program whose terms were established by the Obama administration.
