US to hold major auction of oil and
gas leases
In a statement, the government said Interior Secretary Ken
Salazar will travel to New Orleans Wednesday to hold a major oil and gas lease
sale covering more than 85,000 sq. km in the Gulf of Mexico - a move that comes
18 months after BP's massive oil spill, the largest in the country's history.
The sale of rights to the deepwater tracts also comes on
the heels of last week's lease sale covering more than 567 sq. km in Alaska's
National Petroleum Reserve.
The initiative is one of several steps, including
additional lease sales, offshore lease extensions and steps to streamline
permitting, that are aimed at meeting a series of directives announced by Obama
in May, the White House said.
Those moves, which have included licenses to drill in areas
of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico that were previously off-limits, are aimed at
achieving the president's goal of 'expanding safe and responsible domestic oil
and gas production'.
The Department of the Interior estimates that Wednesday's
lease sale could result in the production of between 222 million and 423
million barrels of oil and up to 2.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the
White House said.
The administration also noted that, in the wake of the oil
spill resulting from the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon
rig, it put in place 'unprecedented safety reforms for offshore drilling,
working with industry to improve practices and oversight'.
Those steps, the White House said, will ensure these new
areas are developed safely.
Since implementing the new safety standards, the
administration has 'approved 97 shallow water permits in the Gulf of Mexico and
211 permits for activities at 60 deepwater wells', the statement said.
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