Colombia’s state-run petroleum company Ecopetrol wins complete drilling rights for more than 100 square miles of the Gulf Coast in the United States.
The addition of the seven new blocks means Ecopetrol and its US subsidiary Ecopetrol America Inc now have 100% control of 119 blocks in an area of high petroleum and gas potential.
The blocks, located in the western part of the Gulf Coast in zones known as East Breaks and Keathley Canyon, were offered in the “Oil & Gas Lease Sale 218” by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in New Orleans, Wednesday.
Twenty-one million acres were offered in what was “the last remaining Western Gulf Planning Area sale scheduled in the 2007-2012 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Natural Gas Leasing Program.”
The BOEM requires bids to be a minimum of $100 per acre since conducting research showing that leases that received bids of less than this amount were not explored or developed. The minimum bid per acre used to be $37.50.
Ecopetrol America Inc has 20% participation in a project which struck oil in Logan-1 well in the Gulf of Mexico in October.