U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Gulf of Mexico OCS Region NEWS RELEASE

News Desk Alert

MMS Director to Hold Press Conference Following Lease Sale

Who:  Johnnie Burton, Director, Minerals Management Service, the U.S. Department of the Interior

What:  Press Conference to announce the results of Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 184

When:  Wednesday, August 21, 2002, at 10:30 a.m. (immediately following the close of the sale)

Where:  The Hyatt Regency Hotel Conference Center, Audubon Room, 500 Poydras Plaza, New Orleans

MMS Director Johnnie Burton will be in New Orleans on August 21 to attend Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 184.  The Director will open the Sale at 9:00 a.m. in the Cabildo Room with brief remarks.  Immediately following the bid reading (approximately 10:30 a.m.), she will conduct a press conference to discuss the results of the sale.  In addition, the Director will take questions from the press corps.

Sale 184 encompasses about 22.3 million acres in the Western Gulf of Mexico OCS Planning Area offshore Texas and in deeper waters offshore Louisiana.  For more information about Sale 184, visit http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/lsesale/184/wgom184.html on the MMS website.

MMS is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf in federal offshore waters.  The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses mineral revenues from federal and Indian leases.  These revenues totaled nearly $10 billion in 2001 and more than $120 billion since the agency was created in 1982.  Annually, nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands.

-MMS-GOM-