The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said on Oct. 5 it will publish its updated Final Notice of Sale (FNOS) for the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) Oil and Gas Lease Sale 261 in the Federal Register on Oct. 6. 

BOEM has set the lease sale for Nov. 8. 

The lease sale had originally been set for Sept. 27 to meet the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Sept. 30 deadline for holding the sale, but on Sept. 26 BOEM announced it would postpone the lease sale due to a court ruling on the matter.

In response to lawsuits filed by Chevron, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute over the proposed sale, particularly related to the exclusion of blocks from the offering to protect the Rices’ whale population, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ordered BOEM to hold the sale by Nov. 8.

Following direction from the court, Sale 261 offers approximately 13,618 blocks spanning 72.7 million acres on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Western, Central and Eastern Planning areas in the GoM. 

Originally, BOEM had included 12,395 blocks covering approximately 67 million acres in Lease Sale 261. 

Further, the court directed BOEM to remove portions of a related stipulation meant to address potential impacts from the lease terms for any leases that may result from Lease Sale 261. 

The FNOS and a map of the lease sale area are available here. 

Offshore