Watch: Historic internet broadcast of Gulf of Mexico lease sale

US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will on Wednesday host a lease sale offering 23.8 million acres in federal waters offshore Texas for oil and gas exploration and development. What makes this lease sale special is the fact the it will be broadcast live on the internet.

BOEM has said that the intention behind the livestream is to allow bid information to reach a much broader audience and eliminating the need for the public to physically attend the bid reading.

The Lease Sale 248, which offers all unleased and non-protected areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area, will be live streamed to the public. You can follow the live stream below:

This Lease Sale is the eleventh offshore sale under the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017 (Five Year Program). The first ten sales in the Five Year Program offered more than 60 million acres for development and garnered more than $3 billion in bid revenues.

Lease Sale 248 includes 4,399 tracts from nine to more than 250 miles off the Texas coast, in water depths ranging from 16 to more than 10,975 feet (five to 3,346 meters). When bidding closed, three companies had submitted 24 bids on 24 tracts for Western Sale 248.

Four arrested over lease sale protests

While BOEM hoped that live streaming of the event would mean people would watch it from the comfort of their homes, environmental groups think differently.

According to reports, four protesters opposing the federal oil lease sales were arrested in front of a building in New Orleans where the leasing agency has its offices.

The four arrested protesters ignored warnings from the Jefferson Parish sheriff’s captain to leave private property. The protesters had claimed they would stay until they got a response from President Barack Obama, or until they were arrested, and arrested they were.

Offshore Energy Today Staff