Drill pipe and rig in the Piceance Basin, Colo. Photo: Timothy Hurst
Qualified participants can now buy oil and gas leases from the comfort of their own couch office. The BLM conducted the first-ever oil and gas lease internet auction as a one-time test authorized by Congress to assess its feasibility.
Forty-eight bidders registered to participate in the sale, which was conducted online only over an eight-day period, from September 9 to 17. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Colorado office sold 19 parcels of 28 offered, totaling 7,701 acres, and earned $153,637, in the agency's first-ever online sale of oil and gas leases.
Credit card information, as well as a sworn statement of intention to buy, are required. The pilot online leasing project comes about nine months after Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old Utah economics student and environmental activist participated and won an auction for an oil and gas lease in Utah — with no intention of paying for it.
"I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself," said DeChristopher at the time.
The BLM will study the data from the one-time pilot project to determine its effectiveness for future lease auctions.
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