(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will offer 38 million acres in the Central Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration and development, US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and BOEM Director Tommy Beaudreau announced on Monday.
The sale will build on two major Gulf of Mexico lease sales in the last year - a 21-million-acre sale held last December and a 39-million-acre sale held in June.
The sale supports the Obama administration's goal of continuing to increase domestic oil and gas production, which has grown each year the President has been in office, with domestic oil production in 2011 higher than any time in eight years, the Interior Department announcement noted.
Proposed Lease Sale 227, scheduled to take place in New Orleans in March, will offer all unleased areas in the Central Gulf of Mexico Planning Area, offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and could lead to the production of up to nearly a billion barrels of oil and nearly four trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the announcement said.
This will be the second sale under the administration's new Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-17 and the first of five annual Central Gulf lease sales. Announced in June, the Five Year Program makes offshore areas with more than 75 percent of the technically recoverable oil and gas resources available for exploration and development, consistent with President Barack Obama's commitment to continue to expand domestic energy production and reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, the announcement said Since Obama took office, domestic oil and gas production has increased each year, with domestic oil production at an eight-year high, natural gas production at an all-time high, and foreign oil imports now accounting for less than 50 percent of the oil consumed in the United States - the lowest level since 1995.
Lease Sale 227 encompasses about 7,250 unleased blocks covering approximately 38 million acres. The blocks are from three to about 230 miles offshore in water depths ranging from nine to more than 11,115 feet (three to 3,400 meters).
BOEM estimated the proposed lease sale could result in the production of 0.
46 billion to 0.89 billion barrels of oil and 1.9 trillion cubic feet to 3.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
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