WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th November, 2021) The Biden administration's auction of oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico has generated top bids of more than $191 million, the US Interior Department announced on Wednesday, with commentators saying the record sale contradicted commitments to reduce global emissions.
"In today's Gulf of Mexico sale, we received 317 bids on 308 tracks," Mike Celata, regional director for the area overseen by the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said. "The total of high bids is $191,000,688.984."
Celata said the auction received bids totaling $198.5 million from 33 companies.
Commentators described it as the "largest ever" drilling auction for the Gulf of Mexico and the top bids as "record" or "historic" - something that the Interior Department itself did not confirm.
They added that coming just four days after global climate talks in Scotland, the auction was a contradiction by the Biden administration of its joint commitment with other nations to reduce emissions.
"Coming in the aftermath of the climate summit, this is just mind boggling," Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, was quoted saying in a report by The Guardian. "It's hard to imagine a more hypocritical and dangerous thing for the administration to do. It's incredibly reckless and, we think, unlawful too. It's just immensely disappointing."
The Interior Department, which oversees drilling on US public lands and waters, has estimated there is as much as 1.12 billion barrels of oil and 4.2 trillion cubic feet of gas available for extraction. A separate lease sale offered by the government in Alaska's Cook Inlet will offer up another 192m barrels of oil and 301 billion cubic feet of gas to drillers.
Combined, these leases would result in nearly 600m tons of planet-heating gases if fully developed over the next four decades, which is more than the total annual emissions of the United Kingdom, the report said.
