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

Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 185 Receives 793 Bids on 561 Tracts

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf Region (GOMR) announced at 10 a.m. today that it has received 793 bids from 66 companies on 561 tracts offered in the Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 185. Lease Sale 185 will take place tomorrow, March 19, 2003 at 9 a.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (Poydras Plaza), in New Orleans, Louisiana.

This sale will be WebCast as follows:

• Through GoGulfTV at www.gogulf.net beginning at 6:00 P.M. on March 19, 2003. Viewers can download the complete broadcast free of charge for viewing at their convenience.
   
• Through the Offshore Oil Scouts Association at www.oosa.com. Real Player will need to be installed in order to run the WebCast.

Please note that the listing of these webcasts on this official MMS web site, as well as the actual webcasts of the upcoming MMS lease sales, does not imply any endorsement by MMS.

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 American Indian leases. These revenues totaled over $6 billion in 2002 and nearly $127 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.

-MMS-