By Tom Lutey, Billings Gazette
As federal oil and gas leases go, the first Montana sale in nearly two years was no firecracker.
Post-sale data for the June 30 event shows 865 federal acres in Montana fetching a combined $68,073. The data is presented by EnergyNet, which manages the Bureau of Land Management’s online leasing program. The sale, which included parcels in Montana and North Dakota, produced more than $7.3 million in receipts. North Dakota acres received as much as $52,001 an acre.
This was the Bureau of Land Management’s first Montana-Dakota lease sale since Sept. 22, 2020. It was brought about by a court order striking down an onshore-lease suspension made by President Joe Biden days after taking office. As a candidate, Biden had campaigned on ending oil and gas drilling on federal land, a key part of the president’s plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The sale seemed to satisfy neither the petroleum industry nor environmentalists.
