The Oil and Gas Lease Sales map below shows parcels proposed to be offered for lease by the Bureau of Land Management. This interactive map shows current and upcoming lease sales and their conflicts with wildlife and natural areas. More information on upcoming leases is shown below the map.
Advice on how to use the map: Zoom in for more detail. Select the layer list icon in the upper left, expand and turn on conservation_conflicts and other layers and sublayers. Click on parcels or conservation conflict areas for more information. Scroll through pop-ups for multiple overlapping areas by clicking on the right triangle/arrow.
Federal oil and gas leasing is on hold for most of Colorado while the Bureau of Land Management is completing Resource Management Plans revisions and amendments. The proposed September 2024 lease sale is for federal minerals managed by the Forest Service and is offered by the Bureau under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) obligation.
September 24 (Q3), 2024 Lease Sale
Sale Notice (posted 7/26/2024)
- Protests on the Sale Notice and Updated Draft EA for the proposed September 24, 2024, lease sale are due Monday, August 26, 2024. Important information on how to protest is in the Sale Notice and on the September 2024 Competitive Oil & Gas Lease Sale ePlanning page. Protests may be submitted through the links provided to the electronic comment form under the Participate Now or Documents section of the ePlanning page. Additional information about the sale is available in the Announcement and on the BLM Colorado Oil and Gas Lease Sales web site.
- Note that there are inconsistencies between the protest instructions on the ePlanning page and in the Sale Notice. The Sale Notice states that “received no later than 4:00 pm Mountain Standard Time on August 20, 2024” and that you “may file a protest either by hand delivery, by fax, or mailed in hardcopy form.” The ePlanning page states that the protest period “closes on August 26, 2024, at 4 PM MDT, “that protests can be submitted through ePlanning, and does not mention submitting a protest by Fax. If you plan to submit a protest, you should request clarification from BLM.
- According to the website and documents, BLM is proposing to offer 1 parcel / 120 acres in Northeast Colorado. The parcel is in Weld County in the Royal Gorge Field Office. The parcel is on public surface with federal subsurface minerals managed by the Pawnee National Grassland (Forest Service).
- Conflicts identified include overlaps with:
- High priority habitat for aquatic native species
- High priority winter habitat for mule deer
- Breeding range for mountain plover
- The parcel is on an area identified by the Bureau of Land Management as having high potential for oil and gas development and is within one mile of producing wells.
- Sale Notice Google Earth kmz | zipped shapefile
- Sale Notice ABI Screen, a spreadsheet showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness and other resource values.
Draft Environmental Assessment (posted 5/8/2024)
- Lease Sale Parcels Draft EA Google Earth kmz | zipped shapefile
- Lease Sale Parcels EA ABI Screen, a spreadsheet showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness and other resource values.
Scoping (posted 1/16/2024)
- Lease Sale Parcels Scoping Google Earth kmz | zipped shapefile
- Lease Sale Parcels Scoping ABI Screen
Resources
- Geospatial Data for currently authorized Federal Oil and Gas Lease Parcels
- Federal Oil and Gas Leasing geospatial data is viewable on the Bureau of Land Management’s Mineral & Land Records System (MLRS) Research Map*. Rocky Mountain Wild created a GIS snapshot of this data on 6/11/2024 and it is available as a zipped shapefile. Extracts for states in the Rocky Mountain Region are available in this Google Drive Folder.
- In Google Earth kmz data in the Google Drive Folder, Red = held by production. Purple = not held by production.
- Currently authorized leases spatial data extracted from the Bureau’s Oil and Gas Leases Feature Service as of 6/11/2024. Data was modified by Rocky Mountain Wild by extracting currently authorized leases, removing data with the poorest quality (including all parcels in Texas), changing the projection, adding missing currently authorized parcels from recent sales in Wyoming (the majority of missing parcels with recent effective dates), adding attribute data from the BLM Land & Mineral System Reports as of 6/11 – 6/14/2024, and removing leases no longer authorized as of 6/11/2024.
- Email Alison if you have any questions.
- Upcoming Lease Sale Tracker (summary of lease sales and resource conflicts)
- BLM Colorado Oil & Gas Leasing Webpage
- Poster Map of Oil and Gas Development in Colorado
- Archive of Colorado Oil & Gas Lease Sale Screens
- Rocky Mountain Wild Oil and Gas Toolbox for Activists
- Information on the Assessment of Biological Impact (ABI) Screen
*The Research Map doesn’t work in all web browsers. I was able to successfully access the map in the Firefox browser on a PC on 6/17/2024.