By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 17 -- The US Minerals Management Service issued a final notice for western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 184, scheduled for Aug. 21 in New Orleans.
The sale will offer 4,085 unleased blocks covering 22.2 million acres off Texas and in deeper waters off Louisiana. The offered blocks are 9-250 miles offshore in water depths of 8-3,000 m. Of these, there are 1,875 blocks in water depths of 800 m or greater.
The final notice includes a number of incentives targeting deep-pay and deepwater oil and natural gas production, MMS said (OGJ Online, Nov. 21, 2001). One such measure affords the suspension of royalties for the first 20 bcf of gas production from a well drilled 15,000 ft or deeper below sea level. Another applies deepwater royalty relief to tracts in water depths greater than 400 m.
The shallow-water, deep gas initiative is designed to provide incentive for bolstering US natural gas production during 2003-07, the MMS said (OGJ Online, Feb. 19, 2002). The deep gas initiative applies to new leases in less than 199 m of water and does not apply to oil production. The incentive ends for a year if natural gas prices trigger a $3.50/MMbtu price limit, MMS said.
