US Bureau of Land Management state offices are in the final stages of preparing for upcoming fourth-quarter oil and gas lease sales. The US Department of the Interior agency now conducts lease sales online at www.energynet.com.
BLM’s Colorado State Office is considering offering 81 parcels at a Dec. 13 quarterly lease sale scheduled for 9 a.m. MST. It is assessing a recent US District Court opinion on the Colorado River Valley Field Office Resource Management Plan and its potential impacts on the field office’s parcels for the upcoming sale.
The agency’s Wyoming State Office plans to offer three parcels totaling 720 acres at its next quarterly lease sale in December, which it has not yet scheduled. It published a sale notice on Oct. 26, triggering a 10-day protest period, which ended on Nov. 5. To comply with a Sept. 21 preliminary injunction issued by the US District Court for Idaho, the lease sale will not include 578 parcels, which intersect with greater sage grouse priority and general habitat management areas.
BLM’s Utah State Office has scheduled its next quarterly lease sale for Dec. 11. Its 10-day protest period also closed on Nov. 5. The sale’s final list does not include 116 parcels that have been moved to a lease sale scheduled for March 2019 to comply with the district court’s preliminary injunction involving greater sage grouse priority and general habitat management areas.
The agency’s Nevada State Office also has scheduled its next lease sale for Dec. 11, where 17 parcels totaling nearly 32,924 acres in Pershing, White Pine, and Nye counties will be offered. BLM’s New Mexico office, which includes parts of Oklahoma and Texas, plans to offer 114 nominated parcels at an online lease sale the week of Dec. 3.
The Montana office in Billings, which includes parts of North Dakota and South Dakota, will offer 23 parcels on Dec. 11 totaling nearly 13,000 acres in Lewis and Clark, Blaine, Glacier, Toole, Big Horn, Dawson, and Sheridan counties. It will not include 20 parcels that intersect with greater sage grouse priority and general habitat management areas that are covered by the district court’s preliminary injunction.
The agency’s Eastern States Office has scheduled a lease sale for Dec. 13 of tracts in national forests in Mississippi, Michigan, and Ohio.
BLM’s state offices also are seeking nominations for 2019 lease sales. Producers who are interested in nominating tracts should submit expressions of interest through BLM’s National Fluid Lease Sale System. No filing fee or rental is required, the agency said.
