?The super-majors dominated the western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 207 as?interest in deepwater exploration continues to be robust. Super-majors accounted for more than half of all bidding. Lease Sale 207’s?$487 million in high bids?translates to a record $267-per-acre. This was the largest western GOM sale since 1998.


Anadarko Petroleum Corp.?was the largest bidder among domestic oil and gas firms and was the sixth largest bidder overall.?ExxonMobil Corp., BP Plc,?Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and Total SA?dominated the sale, accounting for more than half of all high bids. With more than 130 high bids,?ExxonMobil by itself comprised more than a third of the total.


Foreign firms were also active, primarily those based in Europe. The highest bid belonged to StatoilHydro, which bid $61 million for Alaminos Canyon 380. Bidding by Asian firms was limited. With the exception of Anadarko, Hess Corp.?and Devon Energy Corp., independents sat this sale out.


Anadarko?was also one of the most active bidders. It placed 28 bids (including one listed under Kerr-McGee) for $30 million. Twenty were high bids totaling $20 million. Most of the company’s bidding centered around NW Nansen (EB 558, 602). The company was high bidder on a handful of blocks toward the southwestern corner of the Gulf, which is likely to be prospective for the lower tertiary trend.


There were bids on 319 blocks out of 3,412 up for lease. Typically about 8% to 10% of the blocks up for lease receive bids. The bulk of the bidding occurred in the deep water, especially around the southwestern corner of Garden Banks. More than 50 companies placed bids.
The next lease sale is Central GOM 208, expected to be held in March 2009.

Comments