The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) received only four bids on two parcels during its Sept. 25 lease sale in Wyoming, leaving industry leaders concerned about the future of drilling on public lands there.
Pete Obermueller, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, told Oil & Gas Journal Sept. 27 that the Biden administration’s handling of recent lease sales equates to “a slow and steady strangulation of the industry in Wyoming.”
Bids received in the lease sale covered 79.38 acres, just half of what was offered. Obermuller noted that the lackluster sale was unsurprising since BLM’s recent lease sale lease sale offered just “159 acres of non-contiguous fringe parcels that do absolutely nothing to facilitate horizontal drilling in the Powder River basin.”
The lease sale yielded $27.6 million in high bids.
Obermueller said the oil and gas industry in Wyoming had nominated millions of “high-value, high-potential acres” for development that “they are willing to lease right now from the BLM. The BLM is sitting on all those acres with no plan or explanation as to if or when they will be offered for lease.”
The terms of the BLM Wyoming lease sale are consistent with new leasing rules and include a 16.67% royalty rate for production on any new leases. Revenues are split between the state and the US Treasury.