Gulf of Mexico, Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), Oil and Gas Lease Sale 256
| Published date | 19 October 2020 |
| Citation | 85 FR 66346 |
| Record Number | 2020-23079 |
| Section | Notices |
| Court | Ocean Energy Management Bureau |
Federal Register, Volume 85 Issue 202 (Monday, October 19, 2020)
[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 202 (Monday, October 19, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66346-66348]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-23079]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
[Docket No. BOEM-2020-0017]
Gulf of Mexico, Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), Oil and Gas Lease
Sale 256
AGENCY: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of availability of a record of decision.
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SUMMARY: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is announcing the
availability of a Record of Decision for proposed Gulf of Mexico (GOM)
[[Page 66347]]
regionwide oil and gas Lease Sale 256. This Record of Decision
identifies BOEM's selected alternative for proposed Lease Sale 256,
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 BOEM's website at
http://www.boem.gov/nepaprocess/.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For more information on the Record of
Decision, you may contact Ms. Helen Rucker, Chief, Environmental
Assessment Section, Office of Environment, by telephone at 504-736-
2421, or by email at [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS, BOEM
evaluated five alternatives for proposed Lease Sale 256. 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 A--Regionwide OCS Lease Sale: This is BOEM's 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 current boundary of the Flower Garden Banks
National Marine Sanctuary; 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 BOEM's rejection
of their bid, unless the reconsideration request is fully resolved at
least 30 days prior to the publication of the Final Notice of Sale. We
have listed the unavailable blocks in Section I of the Final Notice of
Sale for proposed Lease Sale 256 and at www.boem.gov/Sale-256. The
proposed regionwide lease sale area encompasses about 91.93 million
acres (ac), with approximately 78.2 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 B--Regionwide 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 BOEM's 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
51.5 million ac are 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 0.185-
0.970 BBO and 0.441-3.672 Tcf of gas.
Alternative C--Regionwide 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 current boundary of the Flower Garden Banks National
Marine Sanctuary; 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 BOEM's
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 26.7 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 0.026-0.148 BBO and 0.106-0.752 Tcf of gas.
Alternative D--Alternative 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 and/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 oil- and 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. Under Alternative D, the
number of blocks that would become unavailable for lease represents
only a small percentage of the total number of blocks to be offered
under Alternative A, B, or C (less than 4%, even if blocks subject to
all three stipulations were excluded). Therefore, Alternative D could
reduce offshore infrastructure and activities in the pinnacle trend
area because Alternative D would simply shift the location of offshore
infrastructure and activities farther from these sensitive zones; it
would not lead to a reduction in overall impacts. Moreover, the
incremental negative impacts of the other alternatives compared with
Alternative D would be largely mitigated by the application of the
lease stipulations in Alternative A, as discussed below.
Alternative E--No Action: This alternative is not holding proposed
[[Page 66348]]
regionwide Lease Sale 256 and is identified as the environmentally
preferred alternative. Alternative E was not selected because, if it
were, the needed domestic energy sources and the subsequent positive
economic impacts from exploration and production, including employment,
would not be realized. Not holding a single lease sale would also not
significantly change the overall activity levels in the GOM (i.e., on
blocks leased in previous lease sales) and the associated environmental
impacts in the near term; however, it would avoid the incremental
contribution of the proposed regionwide lease sale to the cumulative
effects of ongoing activity. Avoidance of this incremental
contribution, however, is outweighed by the potential negative economic
and socioeconomic impacts of choosing Alternative E.
Lease Stipulations--Eleven lease stipulations have been adopted for
Lease Sale 256, including a new stipulation not previously included in
recent lease sales, related to processing of certain post-lease permits
and described below. The 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS describes 10 of
these 11 lease stipulations, which are included in the Final Notice of
Sale Package.
In the Record of Decision for the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf
Oil and Gas Leasing: Proposed Final Program, the Secretary of the
Interior required the protection of biologically sensitive underwater
features in all Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sales as programmatic
mitigation; therefore, we are adopting the Topographic Features
Stipulation and Live Bottom Stipulation and applying them to designated
lease blocks in proposed Lease Sale 256.
The additional nine lease stipulations considered for proposed
regionwide Lease Sale 256 are the Military Areas Stipulation; the
Evacuation Stipulation; the Coordination Stipulation; the Blocks South
of Baldwin County, Alabama, Stipulation; the Protected Species
Stipulation; the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Royalty Payment Stipulation; the Below Seabed Operations Stipulation;
the Stipulation on the Agreement between the United States of America
and the United Mexican States Concerning Transboundary Hydrocarbon
Reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico; and the Timeframe for Decisions on an
Application for Permit to Drill (APD) and an Application for Permit to
Modify (APM) Stipulation. The Protected Species Stipulation has been
updated for this lease sale due to the completion of the Endangered
Species Act consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service and
the issuance of a new Biological Opinion addressing OCS oil and gas-
related activities in the Gulf of Mexico, including this lease sale.
The Timeframe for Decisions on an Application for Permit to Drill (APD)
and an Application for Permit to Modify (APM) Stipulation is
administrative in nature and addresses the processing and timing of
decisions for APDs and APMs by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental
Enforcement (BSEE). It does not alter any underlying requirements for
those applications and therefore would not be expected to change any
environmental effects reasonably foreseeable as a result of this lease
sale and any related post-lease activities. As noted, BOEM is adopting
these nine stipulations as lease terms where applicable and they are
enforceable as part of the lease. Further, Appendix B of the Gulf of
Mexico OCS Oil and Gas Lease Sales: 2017-2022; Gulf of Mexico Lease
Sales 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 259, and 261--Final
Multisale Environmental Impact Statement provides a list and
description of standard post-lease conditions of approval that BOEM or
BSEE may require as a result of their plan and permit review processes
for the Gulf of Mexico OCS region.
After careful consideration, BOEM selected the preferred
alternative (Alternative A) in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS, with
certain additional blocks excluded due to their status, for proposed
Lease Sale 256. BOEM is also adopting 11 lease stipulations and all
practicable means of mitigation at the lease sale stage. The preferred
alternative meets the purpose of and need for the proposed action, as
identified in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS, and provides for orderly
resource development with protection of human, marine, and coastal
environments while also ensuring that the public receives a fair market
value for these resources and that free-market competition is
maintained.
Authority: This Notice of Availability of a Record of Decision
is published pursuant to the regulations (40 CFR part 1505)
implementing the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act
of 1969, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.).
Michael A. Celata,
Regional Director, New Orleans Office, Department of the Interior
Regions 1, 2, 4, and 6, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
[FR Doc. 2020-23079 Filed 10-16-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-MR-P
