The Interior Department this fall will offer more than 20 million acres of western Gulf of Mexico waters for oil and gas development, its third lease sale since the BP PLC oil spill in April 2010 and the first in the department's new five-year leasing plan.

The announcement comes days before the House is expected to pass a bill overturning the administration's 2012-2017 plan in favor of a Republican proposal that broadens development far beyond the Gulf (E&E Daily, July 23). The House bill is not expected to pass the Senate.

Interior said its Nov. 28 sale in New Orleans will again include a variety of incentives to encourage timely development, including higher minimum bids for deepwater tracts, escalating rental rates and tiered durational terms. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the sale could yield up to 200 million barrels of oil and 938 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

In past sales, industry has bid on only a small fraction of the parcels available for lease.

"With comprehensive safety standards in place, this sale will help us to continue to responsibly grow America's energy economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

The last lease sale exclusively in the western Gulf in December 2011 sold drilling rights on more than 1 million acres, drawing $338 million in high bids and nearly tripling the amount raised in the previous western Gulf sale in August 2009 (E&ENews PM, Dec. 14, 2011).

In its second sale last month in the central and western Gulf, the agency raised $1.7 billion in high bids, including a record $157 million for a single lease by Statoil (E&ENews PM, June 20).

The western Gulf, which includes waters up to 10,975 feet deep, is considered less prospective than the central Gulf, where the Deepwater Horizon rig was located.

Environmental groups including Oceana, Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit challenging the December sale, arguing new leases are premature and illegal and that safety concerns following the BP spill have not been addressed.