Lease Sale 166
March 5, 1997

The Outer Continental Shelf Sale 166 was held in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 5, 1997. This is the same area that attracted a record number of bids in Sale 157, held April 14, 1996. The MMS was expecting considerable industry interest in Sale 166, which had a total of 5,063 blocks available, covering in excess of 27 million acres.

Last year's record, which eclipsed the previous mark that had stood since 1970, is now history.  A total of 103 companies have submitted 1,790 bids on 1,032 tracts, for a total of $1.24 billion. The total sum of apparent winning bids was $824 million, on over 5.4 million acres. Many of these tracts are in deep water.

The big players, in terms of number of tracts bid on, are:

·        Shell Offshore Inc. - 191 bids

·        Unocal - 129 bids

·        Zilkha Energy Company - 121 bids

·        Chevron U.S.A. Inc. - 117 bids