BLM Quarterly Lease Sales -- December, 2019, Sale

This is not the North Dakota quarterly lease sales. This is the BLM quarterly sales.

From The Minot Daily News:

A Bismarck company was the highest bidder in the Bureau of Land Management Montana-Dakotas oil and gas lease sale held online December 18, 2019.

Cody Exploration LLC had a total bid of $50,377.50 for a 150.14-acre parcel in Williams County.

The BLM raised $191,912.50 in its quarterly oil and gas lease sale. Nearly 50 percent of the revenue from the sale will go to the states where the oil and gas activity occurs, in this case Montana and North Dakota, while the rest will go to the U.S. Treasury.

For this sale, BLM offered 20 parcels covering nearly 18,900 acres in Montana and North Dakota for oil and gas leasing through the competitive online auction. There were 23 registered bidders. Fourteen parcels received bids.

The BLM generated a record $1.1 billion from 28 oil and gas lease sales in fiscal year 2018.

I didn't think there was much BLM land in Williams County; this might have been along the ND/Montana state line where there is a bit of BLM land.

So, the Cody Exploration bid:

• $50,378 / 150 acres = $335 / acre in Williams County

Not all of the 18,900 acres received bids. So, we can't get a good figure for bonus per acre paid overall, but, let's do this:

• 20,000 acres / 20 parcels = 1,000 acres/parcel 
• 14 parcels received bids; let's assume 14,000 acres
• $191,912 / 14,000 acres = $13/acre which seems about right based on North Dakota's quarterly lease sales

Cody Exploration has rarely been mentioned on the blog in the past.