The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Announces Lease Sale 262 in the Gulf of Mexico

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has announced a proposed notice of sale for an upcoming oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lease Sale 262 will offer approximately 15,000 unleased blocks located between five and 370 km offshore across the Gulf’s Western, Central, and Eastern Planning Areas. Covering roughly 324,000 sq km, these blocks are situated in water depths ranging from three to 3,400 m.

The sale will be the first of three planned lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico under the 2024–2029 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program.

“Offshore oil and gas play a vital role in our nation’s energy portfolio, with the Gulf supplying 14% of domestically produced oil,” said BOEM’s principal deputy director Matt Giacona.

The Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf spans approximately 650,000 sq km and is estimated to contain around 48bn barrels of undiscovered, recoverable oil and 141tn cubic feet of natural gas.

BOEM said that the leases awarded through Lease Sale 262 will be for oil and gas exploration and development only. Certain areas may be excluded from this lease sale, including blocks subject to the presidential withdrawal from September 2020, blocks adjacent to or beyond the US Exclusive Economic Zone in the northern portion of the Eastern Gap, and blocks within the current boundaries of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.

“To support robust industry participation, lower production costs, and unleash the full potential of the Gulf’s offshore energy reserves, BOEM is proposing a royalty rate of 16.6% for both shallow and deepwater leases, the lowest rate for deepwater since 2007,” said Laura Robbins, BOEM’s acting regional director for the Gulf of Mexico.

This initiates a 60-day comment period for the affected state governors and local governments. Following the comment period, BOEM will issue a Final Notice of Sale in the Federal Register at least 30 days before the scheduled public bid reading. The lease sale bid reading is proposed for December 10, 2025.

Trump’s new offshore drilling plan and the new 2024–2029 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program have run into bipartisan opposition from many states and communities.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill to ban offshore drilling along the coast of New England, which consists of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. All states have representatives supporting the bill except Vermont.

Another bill looks to permanently ban future offshore oil and gas leasing in areas of the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of California, while a different bill aiming to prohibit new oil and gas leases in California, Oregon, and Washington is also on the table.

A recent bipartisan letter is also pushing to prevent offshore drilling in the Carolinas, and attorneys general of Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and, most recently, California filed comment letters with BOEM in which they voiced their opposition to offshore oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.