Thirteen companies submitted bids on 25 blocks in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Big Beautiful Gulf 2 lease sale.
The 11 March lease sale for the Gulf of Mexico generated $46.98 million in apparent high bids, while the bidders exposed $69.84 million through a total of 38 bids. It was held a week after an unsuccessful offering for the Cook Inlet, where more than 1 million acres were made available for leasing but failed to receive any bids by the 4 March deadline.
BOEM offered 15,019 blocks in the Gulf 2 sale. In total, 21 blocks received solo bids, one block had two bids, and three deepwater blocks drew in five bids each.
Green Canyon blocks 404, 448, and 492 were the three blocks that saw the highest interest, and Green Canyon block 404’s high bid of $21 million by BP was the highest bid on a single block. BP also had the 7th highest single bid for a block with its $885,990 offering for the neighboring Green Canyon block 405.
Chevron snagged the other two highly sought blocks, offering high bids of $5.89 million for Green Canyon block 492 and $4.97 million for Green Canyon block 448.
Shell and LLOG submitted the fourth and fifth highest bids in the sale. Shell bid $1.14 million for Mississippi Canyon block 716, and LLOG offered $1.1 million for Keathley Canyon block 828.
All 10 of the highest single bids were for blocks in at least 800-m water depth. In all, 18 of the blocks receiving bids were in 800 to 1,600-m water depths, four were in 1,600-m or more water depth, one was in 400 to 800 m, and two were in less than 200 m.
The deepest block to receive a bid is Walker Ridge block 751 in 2,660-m water depth, for which Woodside Energy submitted a high bid of $806,290.
BP submitted three high bids for a total of $22.56 million, followed by Chevron with three high bids totaling $11.48 million, Anadarko with six at a total of $4 million, LLOG with five at a total of $2.15 million, and Shell’s two high bids at a total of $1.88 million.
The final notice of sale for this offering was published in the Federal Register on 5 February. BOEM offered 15,019 unleased blocks across the Western, Central, and portions of the Eastern Gulf Planning Areas in the sale with a 12.5% royalty rate for both shallow and deepwater leases.
The previous lease sale for the Gulf, in December 2025, was the first sale in 2 years; it drew $279.4 million in high bids. These are the first two sales to be held in the Gulf under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which requires a total of 30 oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf.
Additional Gulf sales are set for August 2026, each March and August through 2039, and March of 2040. Additional Cook Inlet sales are set for March 2027, 2028, 2030, 2031, and 2032.
On 9 March, BOEM announced that the latest National Assessment, which is published every 5 years, put undiscovered technically recoverable oil resources on the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) at 65.8 billion bbl and undiscovered gas at 218.43 Tcf, with the Gulf holding an estimated 26.9 billion bbl and 45.6 Tcf of that total. The Alaskan OCS holds an estimated 24.1 billion bbl oil and 122.29 Tcf of gas, of which the Cook Inlet is thought to hold 970 million bbl and 1.25 Tcf.