The first of four oil and natural gas lease sales scheduled in Wyoming this year is significantly smaller than past auctions, especially those under the Trump administration.
The upcoming sale will offer 20 lease parcels that span 11,250 acres. In comparison, one Trump-era sale offered 383 parcels spanning some 476,506 acres in Wyoming, but the Biden administration delayed and pared down the offering after issuing a federal oil and gas leasing moratorium in January 2021.
Federal officials are seeking public comment on the latest sale between now and Feb. 8. Click here to learn more about the sale and details on each lease parcel. The sale is expected to take place sometime in March.
After the moratorium, a federal court ordered the Bureau of Land Management to resume quarterly lease sales, and the Biden administration has advanced reforms to the oil and gas leasing program, including higher royalty payments, a minimum bid for new parcels and numerous protections for wildlife and other natural resources.
Some industry officials say the BLM has become more selective in lands that it approves for potential development. It appears the agency might even intentionally ignore high-value mineral tracts that hopeful developers nominate for lease sales, Petroleum Association of Wyoming Vice President and Director of Communications Ryan McConnaughey told WyoFile.
“There is no ability to ascertain the BLM’s reasoning for offering parcels or not,” he said.
Leasing hangover?
Some conservation groups, however, suggest that oil and gas developers have already secured access to more federal minerals in Wyoming than they actually have interest in drilling.
As of 2022, developers held federally approved access to some 3.8 million acres of oil and gas in the state that had not yet been drilled, according to analysis by the conservation group Center for Western Priorities. Further, developers appear to show increasingly “tepid interest” in picking up new federal leases offered by the BLM in Wyoming — a trend that revealed itself in 2023, according to the group.
“Almost 80 percent of the acres BLM offered didn’t sell at all or sold for the minimum bid,” Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss recently wrote in summarizing the organization’s analysis. “This shows how little overall interest there is in new competitive leasing in Wyoming.”
Of the 229,552 federal oil and gas leases offered in Wyoming last year, developers successfully bid on just over half: 126,345 acres, according to CWP’s analysis.
“Offering more acres in high potential areas would certainly result in higher interest.”
Ryan McConnaughey, Petroleum Association of Wyoming
In addition to adding protective measures in line with the multiple-use mantra of federal public lands, the Biden administration’s recent reforms to the onshore oil and gas leasing program are designed to disincentivize speculative leasing, according to Katherine Stahl, organizer for the Sheridan-based landowner advocacy group Powder River Basin Resource Council.
“Companies had basically a free-for-all with leasing under the Trump administration,” Stahl said. “So at this point they likely have more land than what they would reasonably be able to develop. Having more land than they can develop can create obstacles to managing the land for other purposes.”
The BLM’s smaller lease sale offerings are a combination of both the industry already having access to plenty of federal minerals in the state and the agency’s renewed focus to avoid development in some areas, particularly Greater Sage-Grouse Priority Habitat Management Areas, Stahl said.
Still, the Petroleum Association of Wyoming contends that the BLM, under the Biden administration, is hamstringing the industry by selecting among nominated parcels some of the least attractive areas to develop while excluding some high-value “donut hole” tracts inside already developed fields, according to the association.
“The reality is that the BLM has more than 1 million acres pending in Expressions of Interest from industry and over 1 million acres in deferral status with no clear path forward,” McConnaughey said. “Offering more acres in high potential areas would certainly result in higher interest.”
Is the fossil fuel industry complaining that they don’t have enough space to dig and drill or that they dont have enough land to speculate on?
Interesting to see how oil/gas affects lands in two western states. Wyoming has 66,600,210 acres; New Mexico has77.2 million acres. Wyoming has 114 ,644 oil/gas leases but 15% are authorized while about 84% are clodsed. This amounts to 8.4 million acres in Wyoming under lease. NM, part of the Permian BSin, second largest oil/gas producer in the US, has 41,170 leases accounting for 13,764,759 acres. Question: If oil/gas companies drilled ONE well on every 5 acres, how many wells could be drilled?
Let’s all try to remember that the United States is a petroleum exporting country. One of the largest,in fact.
The main type of US onshore exploration prospects that geologists put together these days are unconventional plays that are shale/tight rock plays. Quite often, independent geologists or small oil and gas companies will generate an idea for a new undrilled play based on old well data, core data, outcrop data, or a new creative interpretation. These type of prospects are huge and require large areas that can be leased cheaply. The feds restricting leasing and raising minimum bids will kill the finding of new oil and gas fields.
With all due respect, federal geologists do not know why certain parcels are nominated by the industry. The reason for nominating and leasing is kept secret until the exploration company ties up all the acreage and then pedals the idea to larger companies for drilling.
The Feds are killing the oil and gas industry in Wyoming by restricting leasing. I think everyone knows that.
of course “industry” says that!
It is entirely appropriate for BLM to restrict drilling in sensitive environmental areas. That is part of their job. Too bad if the Petroleum Association doesn’t like it.
My thoughts exactly. About time the public has more management input available than Industrial waste farms. BLM, we want to enjoy desert areas for their intrinsic value, not for how much profit can be derived by MULTI-National corporations. As an aside, it is way past time to change mining law. Royalties under current law are a laugh. Canada seems way more interested in every commodity as long as it is in Wyoming or Alaska and will not impact their beautiful country. B
Exactly.
Amen.