Alaska producers active in Gulf of Mexico sale

Steve Sutherlin

Exxon Asset Management Co.’s $26,115,000 bid for Mississippi Canyon (NH16-10) Block 912, was the highest made on a block in part one of the Central Gulf of Mexico Sale 178. The March 28 sale attracted $505.4 million in high bids from 90 companies.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. had the fourth highest bid on a block at $17.1 million; BP Exploration and Production Inc. was sixth on the list with a bid of $13.35 million. ExxonMobil Corp. had three of the top five bids.

Chevron USA Inc., Shell Offshore Inc., Forest Oil Corp., Murphy Exploration and Production Co., Amerada Hess Corp. and Texaco Exploration and Production Inc. also made high bids on some of he richer-priced blocks.

The U. S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service in New Orleans said it received 780 bids on 547 of the 4,390 tracts offered offshore Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The number of tracts bid on was about 60 percent higher than the Central Gulf Sale held in 2000, the service said.

Bidding for shallow water tracts was furious; 338 tracts of 200 meters of water or less received 502 bids. Nine percent of the tracts receiving bids are ultra-deep tracts at depths of 800 meters to 2,365 meters.

Analysts are watching exploration in the Gulf for its impact on domestic gas prices. Gulf of Mexico gas would compete with North Slope gas if a pipeline were built on either the Alaska Highway route or the Mackenzie Delta route.