CHEYENNE – Investors are still looking at oil and gas properties as the federal Bureau of Land Management generated more than $9.2 million 20,797 for leasing rights at the agency’s bimonthly federal oil and gas lease auction in Cheyenne Oct. 7. Almost half of the receipts are shared with the state of Wyoming.

Bids totaling $8,864,991 ranged from the federally mandated minimum of $2 per acre to a high bid of $1,110 per acre. Successful bidders also pay a $140 per parcel administrative one-time fee and yearly rental of $1.50 per acre for the first five years of the lease and $2 per acre in years six through 10, so the net take was $9,220,797.

More than 292,000 acres in 246 parcels were offered, and 217,555 acres in 210 parcels were sold, or 85 percent. The next oil and gas lease sale will be held on Dec.  2 in Cheyenne.

In fiscal year 2007, oil and gas operations on BLM-administered lands in Wyoming produced nearly 30 million barrels of oil and 1.4 trillion cubic feet of gas and generated more than $1 billion in federal oil and gas royalties. Nearly half the royalty payments were disbursed to the state of Wyoming.

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