BOEM requests lease sale information

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, has issued a request for information, as part of the scoping process for the next outer continental shelf five-year oil and gas lease sale program. The program will specify the scope and timing of lease sales to be held in the years 2017 to 2022 in federal waters in regions such as the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska’s lower Cook Inlet, the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea.

The request for information, which was published on June 13, triggered a 45-day comment period, as part of the process for public involvement in sale-plan development. The entire planning process will take up to three years to complete, BOEM says. Under the terms of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, BOEM has to maintain a series of five-year lease sale programs, addressing national energy needs while balancing those needs with the potential environmental impacts of oil and gas activities. The current five-year plan covers the years 2012 to 2017.

BOEM says that it is seeking a wide array of input, including information on the economic, social and environmental values of outer continental shelf resources, and on the potential impacts of oil and gas exploration and development.

“The development of the next five-year program will be a thorough and open process that incorporates stakeholder input and uses the best available science to develop a proposed offshore oil and gas program that creates jobs and safely and responsibly meets the energy needs of the nation,” said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell when announcing the call for information. “Today marks the first step of engaging interested parties across the spectrum to balance the various uses and values inherent in managing the resources of federal offshore waters that belong to all Americans and future generations.”

- Alan Bailey