The Trump administration on Friday announced it would hold a new auction for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in August.
The 77-million acre offering is slightly larger than a similar oil and natural gas lease sale conducted by the Interior Department this month, in what the agency billed as the as the largest offshore drilling sale in U.S. history.
The new sale, to be held Aug. 15, covers 77.3 million acres and 14,474 unleased blocks, in federal waters offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. It covers almost the same area as the previous sale, in which companies bid on just 1 percent of available acreage.
“Responsibly developing our energy resources in the OCS is important to our economy and energy security,” said Joe Balash, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management. “Striking the right balance between protecting the environment, powering America and achieving American energy dominance is our ultimate goal.”
The March 21 sale offered 76.9 million acres and 14,776 unleased blocks in the same distances and depths offshore.
That sale raised $124.8 million on 159 bids from 33 companies, including Shell, Chevron, Total and BP.
Interior hailed the March sale as a satisfying “bellwether” for the Trump administration’s efforts to massively expand offshore drilling in areas where it’s not currently permitted. But critics said the sale received modest industry interest, noting companies bid on only 815,403 total acres, which is 46 percent less than the Interior Department expected.
The industry may not be interested in offshore drilling, critics say, because it is expensive, more risky, and overshadowed by easier-to-access onshore fracking opportunities from the shale boom.
Brazil and Mexico are also competing for business in their offshore areas.
On Thursday, Brazil hosted an offshore sale in which Exxon Mobil, with several partners, offered eight winning bids totaling 640,000 acres, including one bid of $848 million.
How strongly companies consider offshore opportunities in the U.S. will depend on the price of oil, experts say. Oil prices have risen from a low of below $30 in early 2016 to more than $60 per barrel.
The sale offered by Interior on Friday, along with the March sale, are a part of the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022, a five-year program established by the Obama administration.
In January, the Trump administration released its own draft offshore leasing plan, proposing to allow oil and gas drilling in nearly all federal waters.
