Rported by Staff

The first ever online sale of oil and gas leases is now in the books. The Bureau of Land Management’s Colorado office announced that it sold 19 of the 28 parcels offered offered, which will generate $153,637 for the 7,701 acres.

Nearly half of the proceeds will go to the state of Colorado, according to the BLM. Not a large sum, obviously, but these days the State can use any money it can get, given the additional shortfall to an already slashed budget just announced by Governor Ritter.

BLM conducted the online auction as a one-time test authorized by Congress to assess its feasibility. Colorado was selected for the test. The Federal agency said it will analyze the sale results and report to Congress in coming months. The next lease sale on Nov. 12 will revert back to the traditional on-site format and be held at the BLM’s Lakewood office.

The lease areas offered were within BLM’s Royal Gorge, Little Snake and White River field office areas.

Exclusively offered only online,  the sale was conducted over an eight-day period, from Sept. 9 to last Thursday. Forty-eight bidders registered to participate, which almost matched the same number who registered for individual live on-site sales over the past year, the agency said.

Petroleum Development Corp.  generated the highest per-acre price bid for a 1.2-acre parcel in Rio Blanco County that came out to $777 per acre. The high bonus bid of $111,265 was made by ABO Petroleum Corp., MYCO Industries Inc., Yates Drilling Co. and Yates Petroleum Corp. for a 1,444-acre parcel in Rio Blanco County.