Despite the dramatically low oil prices, oil and gas developers bid on 72% of the nearly 119,000 acres of public land in Wyoming in this week’s first quarterly lease sale. Some bids were as low as $2 per acre according to results posted on EnergyNet, a digital marketplace.
The bids represented about 72,000 out of the 118,292 acres of federal land and nearly 26 percent of the available leases sold for the minimum $2 an acre bid. However, the Casper Star-Tribune reported that a 40-acre tract of land in Converse County went for $1,102 an acre.
The Bureau of Land Management has not released the final sale results. Wyoming is one of the leading producers of oil and gas on public land in the country, with the BLM managing millions of acres of minerals. But this year’s initial lease sale came at an uncertain time. Energy market losses have roiled Wyoming operators in recent weeks amid a global price war and coronavirus outbreak. As a result, oil prices have plummeted and investors have ditched energy shares.
Source: Casper Star-Tribune