Nick Snow
Washington Editor
WASHINGTON, DC, May 27 -- The US Minerals Management Service is proposing regulations to distribute qualified federal Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas revenues to four Gulf Coast states and their eligible coastal governmental subdivisions.
The distributions will take place under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, which established federal OCS revenue sharing for affected coastal states and communities, MMS said on May 27.
The law authorized that 37.5% of all federal OCS revenue from new leases in the gulf, including bonus bids, rentals, and production royalties, would be shared with Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas and their coastal communities and counties (or, in Louisiana's case, parishes).
The first sale with immediate revenue-sharing leases, OCS Lease Sale 224, was held Mar. 19, according to MMS. Based on the actual location of tracts bid in the sale, it said it calculates bonuses and first-year rentals for fiscal 2008 would be 30% for Alabama, 27% for Mississippi, 32% for Louisiana, and 11% for Texas.
Qualified OCS revenues are allocated among the gulf producing states based on a formula which incorporates a state's proximity to certain tracts in the gulf's Eastern Planning Area and a small section in the Central Planning Area, MMS said.
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