Offshore staff
NEW ORLEANS – As required by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will publish the Proposed Notice of Sale (PNOS) for an oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, which is scheduled to be held in September 2023.
Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale 261 would offer approximately 13,620 blocks on 73.4 million acres on the US Outer Continental Shelf in the Western, Central, and Eastern Planning Areas.
The IRA mandated that BOEM hold Lease Sale 261 no later than September 30, 2023. BOEM is reportedly proposing to hold the sale Sept. 27. Bids are due from companies a day earlier.
In January, BOEM published a final supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the lease sale that analyzed potential impacts to important environmental resources and identified robust mitigation measures for consideration in leasing the area.
The PNOS will publish in the Federal Register in the coming days. In the meantime, the PNOS and a map of the proposed lease sale area are available at http://www.boem.gov/sale-261.
03.12.2023
