Adrian Hedden
Artesia Daily Press
achedden@currentargus.com

About 7,500 acres of public land in southeast New Mexico was scheduled to be sold to the oil and gas industry at auction July 24.

The Bureau of Land Management auctions leases to federal land each quarter of the year, allowing oil and gas companies to nominate tracts that are then used to drill for fossil fuels.

Leasing the land is the first step to energy production, as operators are also required to apply to the bureau for permits to begin drilling.

Here’s what to know about the most recent upcoming land sale to the oil and gas industry.

Where are the lands being leased?

The proposed lands in the sale include 7,302 acres on 14 parcels in Eddy County and 200 acres on two parcels in Lea County.

How can you get involved?

A 30-day protest period – April 14 to May 14 – was opened by the bureau to allow those interested to submit comments opposing the sale of specific lands offered in the auction.

Protest comments can be submitted by mail to the BLM New Mexico State Office, Attention: State Director, 301 Dinosaur Trail, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508.

Protests can also be submitted by email to BLM_NM_Q3_2025Protest@BLM.gov with the subject line: Q3 July 2025 Protest.

The protest should include the name and address of the protester and should state whether the protest is for a person or organization along with reference to specific parcels being protested and reasons to support the protest.

The current protest period followed a scoping period, when technical feedback was requested by the bureau, and an additional public comment period that closed in February.

What are the terms of the leases?

All the leases would be offered at the recently updated 16.67% royalty rate paid by the operator to the federal government on the value of oil and gas extracted. The rate was raised from 12.5% in June 2024 when the bureau enacted its Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Rule.

That also meant minimum bids were raised from $2 to $10 an acre and operators were required to buy bonds of at least $150,000 per lease and $500,000 for all leases statewide. Bonds act as insurance policies to pay for cleanup should a well be abandoned.

Federal oil and gas leases are for 10 years or for as long as oil or gas is produced.

What other leases are planned this year?

The Bureau of Land Management’s fourth quarter lease sale in New Mexico was planned for November on a proposed 8,860 acres.

This auction includes 4,479 acres in Eddy County, on about nine parcels, along with 312 acres on one parcel in Roosevelt County.

The sale also included lands in New Mexico’s northwest San Juan Basin with 1,997 acres on three parcels in McKinley County; 1,520 acres on three parcels in Sandoval County; and a single parcel on 320 acres in Rio Ariba County.

Another 322 acres on four parcels in Oklahoma will be included in the November sale.

Feds pull back on environmental analysis

Federal oil and gas leases will no longer require the bureau to complete environmental impact statements, a document that specifies potential impacts to water, land, air and other aspects of the regions where fossil fuels are produced.

The Bureau of Land Management announced April 10 it was rescinding an order requiring the statements that was issued by January 16, 2025 – four days before President Donald Trump took office.

The decision applied to 3.5 million acres of federal land in New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

The cancellation was in response to Trump’s executive order “Unleashing American Energy” which sought to roll back several environmental regulations related to oil and gas production.