The table below illustrates the dramatic decline in bidding for Atlantic wind leases over the past 2 years. (The California sale is also included in the table.)
| offshore area | sale date | leases sold | acres leased | bonus bids ($ millions) | $/acre |
| NY/NJ | 2/2022 | 6 | 488,000 | 4,370 | 8955 |
| California | 12/2022 | 5 | 373,268 | 757.1 | 2028 |
| Central Atl. | 8/2024 | 2 | 277,948 | 92.65 | 333 |
| Gulf of Maine | 10/2024 | 4 | 439,096 | 21.9 | 50 |
Accepting that bidding at the 2/2022 sale, which averaged nearly $9000/acre, was irrationally exuberant, bidding at this week’s sale was still incredibly weak. Even the bids at the Central Atlantic sale, just 2 months ago, averaged $333/acre, 6.7 times higher than the Gulf of Maine bids.
Energy giants Equinor, Repsol, and Total were among the eligible Gulf of Maine bidders that opted not to participate.
Do the Gulf of Maine bids pass BOEM’s fair market value tests? Apparently so; the sale notice established $50/acre as the minimum bid, and that is where the bidding started and ended. Invenergy and Avangrid had no competition and presumably got the tracts they wanted at the lowest possible price. We’ll see how this works out for the companies and power consumers.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 