Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Wednesday morning that the just-conducted Gulf of Mexico lease sale – which DOI has billed as the largest in history – garnered $124.8 million in lease bonus bids.
When combined with bonus bids from a slightly smaller lease sale held last August, DOI has now raked in almost a quarter of a billion dollars from bids on a total of 240 offshore blocks in the last 9 months. Among the 33 companies who submitted bids were majors like Shell, BP, Chevron and Total.
While the total bids were just about $3 million more than those received last August, the number of blocks leased by DOI rose dramatically, from 90 last summer to 148 in Tuesday’s sale […]