As required by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will publish the Final Notice of Sale (FNOS) and Record of Decision (ROD) for Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale 261 in the Federal Register on August 25, 2023. BOEM plans to conduct the lease sale on September 27, 2023.
Lease Sale 261 will offer approximately 12,395 blocks on approximately 67 million acres on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Western, Central, and Eastern Planning Areas in the Gulf of Mexico.
In January, BOEM published the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the lease sale that analyzed potential impacts to important environmental resources and identified robust mitigation measures for consideration in leasing the area. The lease sale terms include stipulations to mitigate potential adverse effects on protected species and to avoid potential conflicts with other maritime uses.
BOEM’s proposed economic terms are designed to encourage diligent development and ensure fair market value to taxpayers. A full list of terms and conditions are in the FNOS.
The FNOS, ROD, and a map of the proposed lease sale area are available at http://www.boem.gov/sale-261.
