The Oil & 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.
September 2025 Lease Sale
Draft Environmental Assessment (Posted 3/25/2025)
- Comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment are due Friday, April 25, 2025. The Draft EA, appendices, information on how to comment, and a link to an electronic comment form are available on the Montana/Dakotas September 2025 Oil and Gas Lease Sale ePlanning website (click on Home on the left panel for instructions and click on Documents or Participate Now for the comment link). Additional information is available in the Dear Reader Letter and general information is available on the Montana-Dakotas BLM Oil and Gas Leasing website.
- According to the website, documents and GIS data, BLM is proposing to offer 17 parcels/5516 acres in the Miles City and Havre Field Offices in Montana (with, additionally, 12 parcels/2946 acres in North Dakota). The proposed parcels in Montana are located in Blaine, Richland, Roosevelt and Rosebud counties. Please email Alison Gallensky (alison@rockymountainwild.org) for more information on the North Dakota parcels.
- Conflicts identified include parcels in Piping Plover Critical Habitat, Greater Sage-Grouse General Habitat Management Areas, a Multi-Species Big Game Corridor Priority Region, and Mule Deer, Pronghorn and Whitetail Deer Winter Distribution Areas.
- Low potential for development: Three proposed parcels, MT-2025-09-0270, MT-2025-09-0367, and MT-2025-09-0403, are in areas identified in Bureau of Land Management published Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario Documents as having low potential for oil and gas development. Note that all of these proposed parcels are closer than 2 miles away from currently producing wells.
- Lease Sale Parcels EA: Google Earth kmz | Zipped shapefile
- Lease Sale EA ABI Screen (Montana only), a spreadsheet showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness and other resource values.
Scoping Notice (Posted 1/29/2025)
- Comments are due Monday, March 3, 2025. Comments must be submitted through the links provided to the electronic comment forms under the Documents section of the ePlanning site (click ‘Participate Now’ to comment). Additional information about the sale is available under the Home section, in the Announcement, and on the Montana-Dakotas BLM Oil and Gas Leasing website.
- According to the website, documents and GIS data, BLM is proposing to offer 17 parcels/5516 acres in the Miles City and Havre Field Offices in Montana (with, additionally, 12 parcels/2946 acres in North Dakota). The proposed parcels in Montana are located in Blaine, Richland, Roosevelt and Rosebud counties. Please email Alison Gallensky (alison@rockymountainwild.org) for more information on the North Dakota parcels.
- Conflicts identified include parcels in Piping Plover Critical Habitat, Greater Sage-Grouse General Habitat Management Areas, a Multi-Species Big Game Corridor Priority Region, and Mule Deer, Pronghorn and Whitetail Deer Winter Distribution Areas.
- Low potential for development: Three proposed parcels, MT-2025-09-0270, MT-2025-09-0367, and MT-2025-09-0403, are in areas identified in Bureau of Land Management published Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario Documents as having low potential for oil and gas development. Note that all of these proposed parcels are closer than 2 miles away from currently producing wells.
- Lease Sale Parcels Scoping: Google Earth kmz | Zipped shapefile
- Lease Sale Scoping ABI Screen (Montana only), a spreadsheet showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness and other resource values.
April 2025 Lease Sale
Sale Notice (posted 2/28/2025)
- Protests on the Sale Notice are due Monday, March 31, 2025. Important information on how to protest is in the Sale Notice and on the Montana-Dakotas April 2025 Oil and Gas Lease Sale ePlanning site. Protests may be submitted through hand delivery, fax, mailed in hardcopy form, or through the links provided to the electronic comment forms under the Documents or Participate Now sections of the ePlanning site (click ‘File Protest’ to submit your protest). Additional information about the sale is available under the Home section and on the Montana-Dakotas BLM Oil and Gas Leasing website.
- According to the website, documents and GIS data, BLM is proposing to offer 1 parcel/2.5 acres in the Miles City Field Office in Montana (with, additionally, 10 parcels/4264 acres in North Dakota). The proposed parcel in Montana is located in Roosevelt county.
- Conflicts identified include parcels in Piping Plover Critical Habitat, Land within 10 Miles of Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, and parcels in Mule Deer and Whitetail Deer Winter Distribution Areas.
- Lease Sale Parcels: Google Earth kmz | Zipped shapefile
- Lease Sale ABI Screen (Montana only), a spreadsheet showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness and other resource values.
Draft Environmental Assessment (Posted 11/19/2024)
- Comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment are due Friday, December 20, 2024. The Draft EA, appendices, information on how to comment, and a link to an electronic comment form are available on the Montana/Dakotas April 2025 Oil and Gas Lease Sale ePlanning website (click on Home on the left panel for instructions and click on Documents or Participate Now for the comment link). Additional information is available in the Announcement and Dear Reader Letter and general information is available on the Montana-Dakotas BLM Oil and Gas Leasing website.
- According to the website, documents and GIS data, BLM is proposing to offer 1 parcel/2.5 acres in the Miles City Field Office in Montana (with, additionally, 10 parcels/4264 acres in North Dakota). The proposed parcel in Montana is located in Roosevelt county.
- Conflicts identified include parcels in Piping Plover Critical Habitat, Land within 10 Miles of Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, and parcels in Mule Deer and Whitetail Deer Winter Distribution Areas.
- Lease Sale Parcels Scoping: Google Earth kmz | Zipped shapefile
- Lease Sale Scoping ABI Screen (Montana only), a spreadsheet showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness and other resource values.
Scoping Notice (Posted 9/12/2024)
- Comments are due Tuesday, October 15, 2024. Comments must be submitted through the links provided to the electronic comment forms under the Documents section of the ePlanning site (click ‘Participate Now’ to comment). Additional information about the sale is available under the Home section, in the Announcement, and on the Montana-Dakotas BLM Oil and Gas Leasing website.
- According to the website, documents and GIS data, BLM is proposing to offer 1 parcel/2.5 acres in the Miles City Field Office in Montana (with, additionally, 12 parcels/4269 acres in North Dakota). The proposed parcel in Montana is located in Roosevelt county.
- Conflicts identified include parcels in Piping Plover Critical Habitat, Land within 10 Miles of Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, and parcels in Mule Deer and Whitetail Deer Winter Distribution Areas.
- Lease Sale Parcels Scoping: Google Earth kmz | Zipped shapefile
- Lease Sale Scoping ABI Screen (Montana only), a spreadsheet showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness and other resource values.
Resources
- *NEW* BLM Lease Sale Scoping Template for Technical Comments 4/22/2025. Language highlighted in yellow needs to be filled in with information relevant to the particular lease sale. References highlighted in green are recommended sources including as exhibits to be submitted as PDFs accompanying the comment letter. Look for updates as the NEPA process for lease sales is clarified.
- 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.
- BLM Montana Oil & Gas Leasing Webpage
- Archive of Montana 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.