Land sold for oil, gas exploration

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005 | 9:52 a.m.

The federal Bureau of Land Management sold leases to more than 86,000 acres throughout Nevada for oil and gas exploration Tuesday.

The sales generated nearly $728,000, half of which will go to the state. Companies that win the leases also will pay an annual fee of $1.50 an acre or a 12.5 percent royalty on the sale of any oil or gas recovered from the land, which is concentrated in Nye and White Pine counties but includes parcels throughout the state.

With this year's sharp increases in oil and gas prices and a major oil discovery in neighboring Utah, "wildcat" oil and gas speculators have been looking towards the Silver State for new sources of the fossil fuels.

Of 114 separate parcels the BLM offered Tuesday, 59 were sold. The highest bid per acre was $67. The minimum bid for the leases was $2 an acre.

In June the largest lease sale in BLM's Nevada history netted $3.1 million for leases of 335,000 acres. Companies bid up to $95 per acre for the right to seek oil and gas on the leases.

Richard Brown, a BLM public affairs specialist in Reno, said the agency is anticipating greater interest in another planned oil and gas lease sale in December. The agency is tentatively planning to sell 814 separate parcels at that auction.

"We offered fewer parcels this time around," Brown noted.