On 18 July, the Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will offer 77.8 million acres for a region-wide lease sale scheduled for August 21, 2019. The sale will include all available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Lease Sale 253, scheduled to be livestreamed from New Orleans, will be the fifth offshore sale under the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. Lease Sale 253 will include approximately 14,585 unleased blocks, located from three to 231 miles offshore, in the Gulf’s Western, Central and Eastern planning areas in water depths ranging from nine to more than 11,115 feet (three to 3,400 meters).
More details about the sale can be found on the Department of Interior’s website.
