U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Gulf of Mexico OCS Region

MMS Issues Final Notice of Sale for Eastern Gulf of Mexico Sale 181

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service published the Final Notice of Sale for Eastern Gulf of Mexico Sale 181 in the October 26^th Federal Register.   The lease sale will be held at 9 a.m., December 5, 2001, in the Versailles Ballroom of the Riverside Hilton Hotel, 2 Poydras Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130.

The sale area encompasses 256 blocks in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf planning area and covers about 1.47 million acres.  At present, 23 blocks in this area are under lease.  Blocks in this sale are located from 100 miles offshore from the Alabama-Florida state line and over 285 miles from Tampa, Florida.  Estimates of undiscovered conventionally recoverable hydrocarbons in the sale area are 1.25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 185 million barrels of oil.

The complete package of information related to this final notice is available from the MMS website at http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/lsesale/181/egom181.html.  In addition, copies of all documents are available from MMS's Gulf of Mexico Regional Office, Public Information Unit, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123.  The toll-free number is 1-800-200-GULF.

MMS is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf in federal offshore waters.  The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses mineral revenues from federal and Indian leases.  These revenues totaled nearly $8 billion last year and more than $110 billion since the agency was created in 1982.  Annually, nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands.

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MMS's Website Address: http://www.mms.gov