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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 170 / Tuesday, September 7, 2021 / Notices regionwide oil and gas Lease Sale 257.
This Record of Decision identifies BOEMs selected alternative for proposed Lease Sale 257, which is analyzed in the Gulf of Mexico OCS
Lease Sale: Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement 2018
2018 GOM Supplemental EIS.
ADDRESSES: The Record of Decision is available on BOEMs website at http
www.boem.gov/nepaprocess/.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For more information on the Record of Decision, you may contact Dr. Arie Kaller, Regional Supervisor, Office of the Environment, by telephone at 504
7362983, or by email at arie.kaller@
boem.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In the Gulf of Mexico OCS Oil and Gas Lease Sales:
20172022; Gulf of Mexico Lease Sales 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 259, and 261Final Multisale Environmental Impact Statement and 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS, BOEM
evaluated five alternatives for proposed Lease Sale 257. We have summarized these alternatives below, noting some additional blocks that may be excluded due to their lease status at the time of this decision:
Alternative ARegionwide Outer Continental Shelf OCS Lease Sale:
This is BOEMs preferred alternative.
This alternative would allow for a proposed GOM regionwide lease sale encompassing all three planning areas:
Western Planning Area WPA; Central Planning Area CPA; and a small portion of the Eastern Planning Area EPA not under congressional moratorium. Under this alternative, BOEM would offer for lease all available, unleased blocks within the proposed regionwide lease sale area for oil and gas operations with the following exceptions: whole and portions of blocks deferred by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006;
blocks that are adjacent to or beyond the United States Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap; whole and partial blocks within the boundary of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary as of the July 2008
Memorandum on Withdrawal of Certain Areas of US OCS from Leasing Disposition; depth-restricted, segregated portions of Block 299, Main Pass Area, South and East Addition Louisiana Leasing Map LA10A; blocks where the lease status is currently under appeal;
and whole or partial blocks that have received bids in previous lease sales, where the bidder has sought reconsideration of BOEMs rejection of their bid, unless the reconsideration
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request is fully resolved at least 30 days prior to the publication of the Final Notice of Sale. We will list the unavailable blocks in Section I of the Final Notice of Sale for proposed Lease Sale 257, which will be available on www.boem.gov/Sale-257 once it is published. The proposed lease sale area encompasses about 91.93 million acres ac, with approximately 80.8 million ac available for lease. As described in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS, the estimated amounts of resources projected to be leased, discovered, developed, and produced as a result of the proposed regionwide lease sale are between 0.211 and 1.118 billion barrels of oil BBO and 0.547 and 4.424 trillion cubic feet Tcf of natural gas.
Alternative BRegionwide OCS Lease Sale Excluding Available, Unleased Blocks in the WPA Portion of the Proposed Lease Sale Area: This alternative would offer for lease all available, unleased blocks within the CPA and EPA portions of the proposed lease sale area for oil and gas operations, with the following exceptions: Whole and portions of blocks deferred by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006; blocks that are adjacent to or beyond the United States Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap;
depth-restricted, segregated portions of Block 299, Main Pass Area, South and East Addition Louisiana Leasing Map LA10A; blocks where the lease status is currently under appeal; and whole or partial blocks that have received bids in previous lease sales, where the bidder has sought reconsideration of BOEMs rejection of their bid, unless the reconsideration request is fully resolved at least 30 days prior to publication of the Final Notice of Sale. The proposed CPA/EPA lease sale area encompasses about 63.35 million ac, with approximately 53 million ac available for lease. The estimated amounts of resources projected to be leased, discovered, developed, and produced as a result of the proposed lease sale under Alternative B are 0.1850.970 BBO and 0.4413.672 Tcf of gas.
Alternative CRegionwide OCS Lease Sale Excluding Available, Unleased Blocks in the CPA and EPA Portions of the Proposed Lease Sale Area: This alternative would offer for lease all available, unleased blocks within the WPA portion of the proposed lease sale area for oil and gas operations, with the following exceptions: Whole and partial blocks within the boundary of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary as of the July 2008
Memorandum on Withdrawal of Certain Areas of US OCS from Leasing
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Disposition; blocks where the lease status is currently under appeal; and whole or partial blocks that have received bids in previous lease sales, where the bidder has sought reconsideration of BOEMs rejection of their bid, unless the reconsideration request is fully resolved at least 30 days prior to publication of the Final Notice of Sale. The proposed WPA lease sale area encompasses about 28.58 million ac, with approximately 26.9 million ac available for lease. The estimated amounts of resources projected to be leased, discovered, developed, and produced as a result of the proposed lease sale under Alternative C are 0.0260.148 BBO and 0.1060.752 Tcf of gas.
Alternative DAlternative A, B, or C, with the Option to Exclude Available, Unleased Blocks Subject to the Topographic Features, Live Bottom Pinnacle Trend, and/or Blocks South of Baldwin County, Alabama, Stipulations: This alternative could be combined with any of the action alternatives above i.e., Alternative A, B, or C and would allow the flexibility to offer leases under any alternative with additional exclusions. Under Alternative D, the decisionmaker could exclude from leasing any available, unleased blocks in Alternative A subject to any one or a combination of the following stipulations: Topographic Features Stipulation; Live Bottom Stipulation; and Blocks South of Baldwin County, Alabama, Stipulation not applicable to Alternative C. This alternative considered blocks subject to these stipulations because these areas have been emphasized in scoping, can be geographically defined, and adequate information exists regarding their ecological importance and sensitivity to OCS oiland gas-related activities.
A total of 207 blocks within the CPA
and 160 blocks in the WPA are affected by the Topographic Features Stipulation. There are currently no identified topographic features protected under this stipulation in the EPA. The Live Bottom Stipulation covers the pinnacle trend area of the CPA, affecting a total of 74 blocks.
Alternative ENo Action: This alternative is not holding proposed regionwide Lease Sale 257 and is identified as the environmentally preferred alternative. Alternative E was not selected because, if it were, revenue would not be collected by the Federal Government nor subsequently disbursed to the States. If the proposed GOM
region-wide lease sale were not held, the overall near-term level of OCS oil and gas-related activity in the region would be reduced. However, not
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