By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, Apr. 6 -- The US Minerals Management Service has issued proposed notices of sale for Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 180 and Central Gulf of Mexico Sale Part 2, scheduled concurrently for Aug. 22. Both offer blocks in the Western Gap, formerly in dispute with Mexico.
In Sale 178 Part 2, the MMS will offer 53 blocks not offered in Central Gulf Sale 178 Part 1, which was held Mar. 28. The blocks are beyond the US Exclusive Economic Zone in the northern portion of the area known as the Western Gap.
In Sale 180, the MMS will offer 4,106 unleased blocks, about 22.39 million acres, in the Western Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf Planning Area offshore Texas and in deeper waters offshore Louisiana. The sale will include 258 blocks in the Western Gap.
Those blocks will be subject to the provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention Royalty Payment Stipulation contained in the sale notice.
The proposed notice for Sale 180 includes an incentive to drill for deep gas deposits located in the shallow-water shelf area of the Gulf of Mexico by providing for royalty suspension for the first 20 bcf of production from a well drilled below 15,000 ft subsea.
Deepwater royalty relief will be applied to tracts in water depths greater than 800 m. The specific terms for royalty relief will be granted to individual leases, not fields as in the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act, and will be designated at the time of the final notice of sale.
