The Trump Administration has scrapped a series of oil and gas licencing auctions, halting new offshore developments in US territory as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to disrupt the oil and gas industry.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the body within the Department of the Interior responsible for lease sales on around 245 million acres of public land, has postponed sales of more than 10,000 acres in Nevada and 88 acres in Mississippi, both of which were expected to go up for auction later this month. The move follows the suspension of an auction for 45,000 acres of land in New Mexico, which was expected to take place in the last few days of May, and the suspensions have turned into a negative trend that has undermined the government’s commitment to propping up its oil and gas industry.
Read more about the impacts of the suspended auctions here.