A US District Court judge for the District of Columbia has cancelled oil and gas leases for over 80 million acres (around 37 million hectares) in the Gulf of Mexico, considering that the Department of Interior's analysis did not fully take into account the climate impacts of the leases. The Department of Interior will review the decision. More than 1.1 Gbl of oil and 4.4 tcf (125 bcm) of gas were projected from the Lease Sale 257.
In January 2021, the United States implemented a moratorium on new drilling from federal land pending a review. However, in June 2021, the government was ordered by a federal judge in Louisiana to resume auctions, as the administration was required by law to offer acreage to the oil and gas industry. In November 2021, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) received nearly US$192m in high bids for 308 tracts covering 1.7 million acres (688,000 hectares) in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. A total of 33 companies, including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil, participated in the lease sale, submitting US$198,511,834 in total bids. Lease Sale 257 offered approximately 15,148 unleased blocks located from 3 to 231 miles (5 to 372 km) offshore, in the Gulf’s Western, Central and Eastern Planning Areas in water depths ranging from nine to more than 11,115 feet (three to 3,400 meters).
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