Lease Sale 171
August 26, 1998

The Outer Continental Shelf Sale 171 was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 26, 1998. This is the same area that attracted a record number of bids in Sale 168, held August 27, 1997, when 82 companies submitted 1,224 bids on 804 tracts, for a total of $939.2 million. The sum of winning bids at that time was $616.2 million.

Sale 171, just completed, resulted in 486 bids, by 63 companies, on 402 tracts, for a total of $741.9 million. The total sum of apparent winning bids was $553.4 million, on approximately 2.3 million acres.

Many of these tracts are in deep water.

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

·        Union Oil Company of California - 84 bids

·        Texaco Exploration and Production Inc. - 72 bids

·        Sonat Exploration GOM Inc. - 37 bids

·        Burlington Resources Offshore Inc. - 35 bids

·        Vastar Resources, Inc. - 32 bids

 

In terms of total amount exposed, we have:

 

·        Union Oil Company of California - $193.1 million

·        Texaco Exploration and Production Inc. - $57.6 million

·        Vastar Resources, Inc. - $40.0 million

·        Marathon Oil Company - $36.9 million

·        Burlington Resources Offshore Inc. - $36.9 million

 

In terms of total amount of high bids, we have:

 

·        Union Oil Company of California - $184.8 million

·        Texaco Exploration and Production Inc. - $48.8 million

·        Vastar Resources, Inc. - $40.0 million

·        Seagull Energy E&P Inc. - $21.1 million

·        Chevron U.S.A. Inc. - $19.9 million