The Interior Department raised $82.7 million in an offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, eclipsing the lackluster auction in March but falling well short of results from other offshore lease sales in recent years.
Sixteen companies submitted 69 bids on 59 tracts, according to Interior’s Marine Minerals Administration, which conducted its first sale since its formation by the Trump administration in July. The bureau had offered up approximately 15,100 unleased blocks covering more than 80 million acres in the sale, which was mandated by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
The results appeared to be the second-weakest Gulf auction since at least 2013, only surpassing the March sale that raised a mere $47 million across 25 tracts sold. It was a far cry from the $279 million brought in during last December’s sale and came in even lower than a March 2020 auction in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic that raised $93 million.
Wednesday’s sale underscores that many oil and gas companies remain wary about the long-term prospects of drilling off U.S. coasts, despite the Trump administration’s aggressive push to expand production along with high crude prices driven by the war in the Middle East. Deepwater offshore developments can take a decade or longer to develop and generally require sustained high prices to make financial sense for producers.
