Nick Snow
Washington Editor
WASHINGTON, DC, Feb. 4 -- US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Feb. 2 ordered the Bureau of Land Management to remove eight tracts from a Feb. 3 oil and gas lease sale after Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal expressed concerns about them.
Salazar said his decision was a response to Freudenthal's Feb. 2 letter to BLM Wyoming State Director Don Simpson concerning three parcels near Shoshone National Forest and five parcels adjacent to the Jack Morrow Hills Coordinated Activity Plan boundary.
The lease sale of 137 remaining parcels totaling 163,526.4 acres proceeded as planned, raising nearly $2.4 million from the sale of leasing rights and from rental fees on 112 parcels totaling 121,706.36 acres, BLM's Wyoming state office said on Feb. 3.
It said that 74.43% of the total acres and 81.75% of the total parcels offered were sold. Bids totaling nearly $2.2 million ranged from the federally mandated minimum of $2/acre to a high bid of $230/acre on one tract.
Successful bidders also pay a one-time administrative fee of $140/parcel and yearly rental of $1.50/acre for the first 5 years and $2/acre for the remaining 5 years of the 10-year leases, said the Wyoming BLM office.
It said its next oil and gas lease sale is scheduled for Apr. 7.
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