Lease Sale 216/222 is the last remaining sale scheduled in the 2007 – 2012 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Natural Gas Leasing Program. As President Obama discussed in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, DOI is finalizing the next Five-Year Program for 2012-2017, which will make more than 75% of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas estimated on the OCS available for development. The Proposed 2012-2017 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program schedules 12 lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.

The proposed lease sale includes approximately 7,250 unleased blocks covering nearly 38 million acres. The blocks are located from three to about 230 miles offshore, in water depths ranging from nine to more than 11,115 feet (three to 3,400 meters) in the Central Gulf of Mexico, a region that BOEM estimates contains close to 31 billion barrels of oil and 134 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are currently undiscovered and technically recoverable. BOEM estimates that the Central Gulf sale could result in the production of 1 billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The terms of sale will reflect recent administrative changes, including escalating rental rates to encourage prompt exploration and development of leases, as well as time under the lease if the operator demonstrates a commitment to exploration by drilling a well during the base period. The durational terms of leases are graduated by water depth to account for differences in operating at various water depths.

In addition, BOEM recently increased the minimum bid for deepwater to $100 per acre, up from $37.50. BOEM said that analysis of the last 15 years of lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico showed that deepwater leases that received high bids of less than $100 per acre, adjusted for energy prices at time of each sale, experienced virtually no exploration and development drilling.

The terms of sale also reflect a series of conditions to protect the environment. These include stipulations to protect biologically sensitive resources, mitigate potential adverse effects on protected species, and avoid potential conflicts associated with oil and gas development in the region. BOEM completed a supplemental environmental impact statement relating to this sale, which considers the latest available information for the Central Gulf of Mexico Planning Area following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.