Biden administration auctions off 1.7M acres for Gulf drilling in last offshore oil lease sale until 2025

The Biden administration has auctioned off the rights to drill for oil and gas on 1.7 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico in what will be the last offshore drilling auction it holds until 2025. 

Companies will pay a total of more than $380 million for the rights to drill on 311 tracts in the Gulf. Twenty-six companies submitted bids. 

The auction is expected to be the last chance for companies to bid for the rights to drill offshore until at least 2025, as the Biden administration recently finalized a plan with the fewest offshore oil and gas lease sales ever put forward in an agency five-year plan.

That plan, finalized last week and covering 2024-29, offers up three chances to bid for the rights to drill offshore.

The oil and gas industry was supportive of Wednesday’s sale but said more auctions should be held in the years ahead.

“Although today’s congressionally mandated lease sale is a positive step … the lack of any offshore sales in the year ahead is a prime example of the administration’s failure to implement a long-term energy strategy,” said a written statement from Holly Hopkins, vice president of upstream policy at the American Petroleum Institute, an oil lobby group.

“We urge the administration to reconsider its shortsighted approach and plan today for tomorrow’s energy demand,” Hopkins added.   

The recent sale was mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act — Democrats’ climate, tax and health care bill. 

However, it follows a contentious recent court battle in which environmental advocates sought to shrink the sale and add stipulations to protect the Rice’s Whale.

The Rice’s Whale is one of the most endangered whales in the world, with likely fewer than 100 remaining, and can be found in the Gulf.

After environmentalists and the Biden administration agreed to certain restrictions for the sale and leases that aimed to protect the whale, Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute and the state of Louisiana filed a lawsuit..

Ultimately, the plaintiffs prevailed, and the sale was held without the removal of acres or the restriction of ship activity, which environmentalists had called for.

“The oil industry and its allies know the Rice’s whale could go extinct if they keep expanding Gulf drilling, but they’ve pushed aggressively to prioritize their profits and hold this sale anyway,” Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a written statement. 

“Perpetual leasing, new fossil fuel export projects and oil spills are creating a hellish situation for marine life and Gulf communities,” she said, adding that the Biden administration should “phase out offshore drilling altogether.”