The United States Department of the Interior (DoI) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will offer 78 million acres (about 316,000 km²) for GoM Lease Sale 252, a region-wide oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) scheduled for March 2019. It will be the fourth offshore sale under the 2017-2022 National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Programme and will include approximately 14,696 unleased blocks.
The last round, namely the GoM Lease Sale 251, was organised in August 2018 and drew 171 bids from 29 participating companies, with high bids totalling US$178m, an increase of about US$53m from the GoM Lease Sale 250 organised in March 2018. The increase in competitive bids demonstrated the companies' continued confidence in the region.
Overall, 10 hydrocarbon sales will be held under the National OCS Programme for 2017-2022. The BOEM estimates that the US OCS holds around 90 Gbl of undiscovered recoverable oil and 327 tcf (9,259 bcm) of undiscovered recoverable gas reserves, of which over 48 Gbl of oil and 141 tcf (3,980 bcm) for the Gulf of Mexico OCS only.