The Interior Department today sold drilling rights on more than 1 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico in its first offshore lease sale since the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The sale in New Orleans, which drew $338 million in high bids, marked a milestone in the department's efforts to overhaul offshore oil and gas development, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.

"What these results demonstrate is that there is a great interest in continuing to develop oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico," Salazar said. "It's an area where industry has a tremendous amount of interest."

The lease sale happened less than 24 hours after environmental groups filed a lawsuit in a federal district court challenging the sale, claiming the agency had failed to heed the lessons of the BP PLC spill (E&ENews PM, Dec. 13).

The London-based company, which has agreed to adopt new voluntary safety measures in the Gulf, bid nearly $110 million on 86,000 acres, winning the right to drill on most of them.

ConocoPhillips Co. submitted the single highest winning bid of $103 million to drill an area known as Keathley Canyon, beating six lower bidders. The next highest winning bid was $9 million by Maersk Oil Gulf of Mexico Two LLC.

A total of 20 companies submitted 241 bids on 191 tracts off the Texas coast, most of them in deep waters. The $338 million in high bids is almost three times the amount raised in the last western Gulf sale in August 2009.

Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said the sale showed companies are eager to invest in new projects and included a "healthy mix" of majors and independents.

"Clearly interest in the deepwater areas remains high," he said in a statement. "This reflects not only the expectation for the resource potential in these areas, but also demonstrates a level of confidence moving forward that lessons learned from last year's spill have been internalized."

A consolidated central Gulf sale is scheduled for the first half of next year, Salazar said.

The lease drew fire from environmental groups that argued Interior is violating the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act.

"Today's offshore lease sale was premature and illegal," said Jacqueline Savitz, senior climate and energy campaign director for Oceana, which joined Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity in filing the lawsuit challenging the sale. The groups did not seek an emergency injunction.

"Selling off rights to drill in the Gulf to the highest bidder, without regard for the hazardous and risky nature of deepwater drilling, is an insult to Gulf fishermen, businesses and residents," she said. "The fact that BP was allowed back into the Gulf is insult enough, but the next accident could happen to any of these companies because the mistakes made on the Deepwater Horizon will not be prevented by the so-called new 'safety requirements.'"

The agency has not responded to the lawsuit, but stated today that it considered the impacts of the BP spill its supplemental review.

"Before moving forward ... we conducted a rigorous analysis of the environmental effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the western Gulf of Mexico," said Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Tommy Beaudreau in a statement.

"We also took a fresh look at the economics of leasing and introduced a number of lease terms designed to ensure fair return to the American people, provide incentives to promote diligent development and help reduce the amount of leased acreage that is warehoused and left unexplored."

For deep waters, BOEM increased its minimum bid requirement to $100 per acre, up from $37.50 in previous sales.