© 2024 KUNR
Illustration of rolling hills with occasional trees and a radio tower.
Serving Northern Nevada and the Eastern Sierra
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
KUNR’s spring fund drive is happening now, and your gift to the station will go twice as far with a matching pledge from the KUNR Advisory Board!

Now is the time to act –
click here to make a gift to KUNR today or increase your sustaining membership and have it matched.
KUNR Public Radio is a proud partner in the Mountain West News Bureau, a partnership of public media stations that serve Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming. The mission is to tell stories about the people, places and issues of the Mountain West.

BLM Holds First Oil And Gas Lease Sale In Months

Lukas Erlbacher
/
Shutterstock

Last week, the Bureau of Land Management held its first oil and gas lease sales in months, netting more than $8 million from drillers eyeing public lands primarily in New Mexico.

The BLM touts the revenues, but as Reuters reports, the auctions saw average bids far lower than pre-pandemic levels.

Lands in Eddy County, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin, drew the auction's highest bid per acre, more than $21,000, according to BLM documents. Last week’s sales also included public lands in Texas and Oklahoma.

Carl Larry, an analyst with Oil Outlooks, says the BLM is likely doing this now to maintain domestic production so we won’t be beholden to foreign interests when consumption rebounds. That’s in line with the Trump administration’s push for more energy independence.

"This just really kind of supports that idea that we want to be, not just independent, but more independent," Larry said.

Larry said low interest rates and less cutthroat bidding may actually entice more buyers and higher bids as lease sales continue.

Even if oil consumption doesn’t fully rebound in the U.S. as more people work from home, Larry said new production now could put the U.S. in a "driver’s seat" to capitalize on rebounding markets worldwide.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Copyright 2020 Boise State Public Radio News

Madelyn Beck is a regional Illinois reporter, based in Galesburg. On top of her work for Harvest Public Media, she also contributes to WVIK, Tri-States Public Radio and the Illinois Newsroom collaborative.
Madelyn Beck
Madelyn Beck is Boise State Public Radio's regional reporter with the Mountain West News Bureau. She's from Montana but has reported everywhere from North Dakota to Alaska to Washington, D.C. Her last few positions included covering energy resources in Wyoming and reporting on agriculture/rural life issues in Illinois.
Related Content