In addition to the 94 nearshore Texas leases Exxon acquired in Sale 257, the company was the sole Sale 259 bidder for all but one of 69 nearshore Texas blocks. The exception was High Island 177 (in red above). So who gets that lease?
- the company (Exxon) that was the sole participant in a de facto CCS sale (bid of $182,750)
- the company (Focus Exploration) that was participating in the announced oil and gas lease sale (bid of $145,177)
If Exxon is just acquiring these leases for evaluation purposes in preparation for a possible CCS sale in the future, their lease acquisitions may be okay. If they are planning on retaining these leases for actual sequestration operations, that is not okay, at least not until a competitive process has been established for awarding or reclassifying such leases. To date, no lease terms or bid evaluation procedures have been proposed for carbon sequestration leases; nor has an environmental review been conducted pursuant to NEPA.
Questions about Gulf of Mexico carbon sequestration
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 
Hi Bud,
Have you seen the new study published by in the PNAS on methane emission in the Gulf? https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215275120
Thanks Tyler. I’ll check it out. Bud