The federal government will offer more than 21 million acres off the Texas coast for oil and gas exploration, the sixth sale in the Gulf of Mexico under its five-year leasing program.
The lease sale, which will be held Aug. 20 in New Orleans, will include more than 4,000 lease blocks covering roughly 21.6 million acres in the western Gulf of Mexico.
The locations of the offered lease areas range from nine to 250 miles offshore and extend to waters more than 10,000 feet deep.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that oversees oil and gas leasing in federal waters, estimates the sale could result in the production of up to 200 million barrels of oil and up to 938 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
The Obama administration has held five previous lease sales under its 2012-2017 lease program, offering more than 60 million offshore acres and netting nearly $2.3 billion for American taxpayers.
Active buyers included British oil giant BP, which was allowed to return to the bidding block for the first time since the blow out of its Macondo well in the Gulf in April 2010. The ensuing Deepwater Horizon rig explosion killed 11 men and prompted the worst oil spill in the nation's history.
The government also offered offshore acreage in the eastern Gulf off the coasts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida for the first time in five years. No companies placed bids, however.
Lease sales in the western Gulf typically offer fewer offshore acres and draw fewer bids than those in the central Gulf.
The August sale will include acreage along the U.S. nautical boarder with Mexico, including areas previously off limits to both countries under a previous trade agreement.
A new agreement reached in 2013 opened the area for exploration and set up a framework U.S. oil and gas companies to work with Mexico's state-owned petroleum company, Pemex, to develop the area.
