This table contains the national totals for Fiscal Years 1988-2015 for each of the following tables. The following tables contain state-by-state breakdowns of these figures for the same time period.
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Oil and Gas Statistics
The BLM compiles a large amount of statistical information relating to oil and gas leasing on Federal lands. Below are links to tables and spreadsheets with data that include the numbers of BLM-administered oil and gas leases, applications for permit to drill, and oil and gas wells. Because the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act if 1987 set the competitive lease requirement for public lands, 1988 is the first year for which some of this data is available. For the purposes of the information on this page, these lands are referred to as “Federal lands.”
The definitions on this page apply to the BLM onshore leasing program only.
The Department of the Interior's Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) maintains statistical data for Federal onshore sales volumes and reported royalty revenues.
The BLM state and regional offices hold quarterly oil and gas lease sales if they have parcels available. The revenue reported includes the first year's rent of $1.50 per acre, a bonus bid of not less than $2 an acre, and an administrative fee. Revenues are split between the state where the drilling occurs and the U.S. Treasury. Information on last fiscal year’s sales is also available.
Table 1
Table 2
This table contains the total number of leases, by state, considered in effect by the BLM at the end of each fiscal year.
Table 3
This table contains the total number of acres, by state, contained in leases considered in effect by the BLM at the end of each fiscal year.
Table 4
This table contains the total number of new leases, by state, issued by the BLM during each fiscal year.
Leases issued over the course of a fiscal year may or may not be leases sold during that same year. For example, a lease might have been sold but not issued pending protest resolution. Following successful resolution, that lease would have been issued, but this process may not have concluded in the same fiscal year. This figure includes parcels sold at a competitive lease sale, as well as leases issued non-competitively.
Table 5
This table contains the total number of acres, by state, contained in new leases issued by the BLM during each fiscal year.
Table 6
This table contains the total number of producing leases by state as of the last day of the fiscal year.
Table 7
This table contains the total number of acres by state covered by producing leases as of the last day of the fiscal year.
Table 8
This table contains the total number of Applications for Permit to Drill (APDs) by state approved by the BLM each fiscal year. Oil and gas operators may not begin drilling activities on a lease without an approved APD.
Download the table here. Note that a single lease may have multiple APDs approved and each well pad may have one or more APDs.
Table 9
This table contains the total number of well bores started (spudded), by state, during each fiscal year. "Spudding in," or to "spud" a well bore, means to begin drilling operations, so a spudded well bore is one where drilling operations have begun.
Table 10
This table contains the total number of producible well bores by state as of the end of each fiscal year. A well bore is considered producible if the well bore is capable of production.
Table 11
This table contains the total number of producible and service completions, by state, during each fiscal year.
Download the table here. Separate service completions are for the benefit of oil and gas operations, such as water disposal, salt water disposal, water injection, gas injection, water source, steam injection, or monitoring.
Table 1-11
Table 12
This table shows total number of acres offered at competitive oil and gas lease sale auctions since January 1, 2009. The data are derived from Table 16 below.
Table 13
This table contains the total number of applications for permit to drill (APDs) by state that had not been drilled as of the end of the fiscal year. Oil and gas operators may not begin drilling activities on a lease without an approved APD.
Table 14
Expressions of interest identify lands sought by industry for possible oil and gas leasing. Submitting an expression of interest to the BLM does not guarantee that parcels will be offered at auction.
Table 15
This chart shows the number of parcels posted on the original sale notices by fiscal year. It also shows the number of parcels offered on the day of sale, and the number of protested parcels from the original sale notice.