Oil, Gas Leases Bring in $9.4 Million
By Joe Baird, The Salt Lake Tribune
Feb. 22–The state Bureau of Land Management office on Tuesday collected $9.4 million worth of bids in its first oil and gas lease sale of the year.
Altogether, the BLM offered 78 parcels covering 115,000 acres in its Vernal, Price, Richfield, Monticello and Cedar City field offices. The agency sold 59 parcels encompassing 82,600 acres, with bids ranging from $2 to $1,100 an acre.
The highest bids were turned in by International Petroleum for parcels in the Richfield Field Office. The Salt Lake City-based company had both the highest per-acre bid, offering $1,100 per acre on a 1,180-acre parcel, and the highest parcel bid with a $1.6 million offer on a 2,036-acre tract. Both parcels are located on what is known as the “Central Overthrust” belt, near the area where Michigan-based Wolverine Gas & Oil made what is potentially a significant discovery of oil and gas reserves last year.
“The sale results reflect that Utah is at the heart of the Rocky Mountain oil and gas frontier,” Terry Catlin, Utah BLM head for oil and gas leasing, said in a statement. “Utah public lands are playing a critical role in meeting the region’s energy needs, particularly with natural gas development. With the active bidding we saw on parcels throughout the state today, it’s clear industry is interested in potentially untapped oil and gas reserves.”
The lease sale was smaller than originally proposed. The BLM last week at least temporarily withdrew 30 parcels covering 55,000 acres along and around the Green and San Rafael rivers, and in the San Rafael Desert after receiving protests from environmental groups and river outfitters.
Agency officials said they withdrew the parcels to resolve conflicts with the land-use plan being developed by the Price Field Office.
But they also indicated that it was “likely” that further analysis would support energy exploration and development on the parcels.
Environmental groups continued to criticize the agency for selling leases in different areas as part of its planning process.
“BLM is talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue,” said Liz Thomas, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “How can we have any faith in the public comment process when BLM is actively seeking to lease and develop areas it acknowledges are worthy of protection?”
But Utah BLM spokeswoman Adrienne Babbitt says the agency “won’t make any decisions that will limit how we act when we finalize those plans. We’re leasing, but at the same time we’re not precluding our options.”
The BLM has three more oil and gas lease sales scheduled this year.
—–
To see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sltrib.com.
Copyright (c) 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.