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The first of four oil and gas lease sales in Wyoming this year will likely be held in March, and it will be smaller than most recent auctions. The lease sale is set to offer 20 parcels that span about 11,000 acres—substantially fewer parcels and acres than previous auctions in the state.
The decrease in parcels and acres up for auction is in line with minimal interest from oil and gas companies in leasing the land. Companies are nominating smaller numbers of acres, and the IRA requires the Bureau of Land Management to offer 50 percent of acres nominated. Despite wanting more acres up for auction, oil and gas companies already have access to 3.8 million acres in the state that haven't been drilled as of 2022. Last year, almost 80 percent of the acres BLM offered didn’t sell at all or sold for the minimum bid.
The Biden administration has taken steps to modernize the outdated oil and gas leasing system on public lands by increasing royalty rates that companies have to pay, increasing the minimum bid from $2 per acre to $10 per acre, prioritizing the protection of cultural resources and wildlife, requiring companies to pay an expression of interest fee of $5 per acre, and proposing increased bonding rates so that companies may properly meet reclamation obligations after drilling.
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We have been here since the beginning of time and when the newcomers arrived, your forefathers, they saw nothing. We had everything. It was a relationship based on living with the land and equality.”
