Outer Continental Shelf Sale 40

Inadequate Data Used to Select and Evaluate Lands to Lease Gao ID: EMD-77-51 June 28, 1977

The Department of Interior's policy of leasing Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) lands that have not been properly evaluated because of insufficient data has led to problems.

A review of Sale 40 indicated that the Department had insufficient data with which to value the tracts. There was only one deep stratigraphic test off-structure for Sale 40. The reliability rating showed that only one of the three major parameters for resource evaluation could be identified by seismic data. A number of tracts (49%) received only one or two bids each. The differences in values assigned by the Department and by industry to the minimum valued tracts leased differed by an average of almost 2,000%.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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