U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Gulf of Mexico OCS Region

News Desk Alert:

Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 178, Part 1 Receives 780 Bids on 547 Tracts

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf Region (GOMR) announced at 10 a.m. today that it has received 780 bids on 547 tracts offered in the Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 178, Part 1.  Last year’s Central Gulf Sale 175 received 469 bids on 344 tracts.

Lease Sale 178, Part 1 will take place tomorrow, March 28, 2001 at 9 a.m. at the Sheraton Hotel (Grand Ballroom "C" - Fifth Floor), 500 Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The sale will be broadcast on the Internet from 8:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. on the day of the sale, under the sponsorship of The Offshore Oil Scouts Association.  To receive broadcast please register at

http://www.oosa.com

The MMS, a bureau in the U.S. Department of the Interior, is the federal agency that manages the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf.  The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses more than $5 billion per year in revenues from federal offshore mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on federal and Indian lands.

-MMS-GOM-

MMS's Website Address: http://www.mms.gov