© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A massive drilling derrick is pictured on BP’s Thunder Horse Oil Platform in the Gulf of Mexico, 150 miles from the Louisiana coast, May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Jessica Resnick-Ault/File Photo
By Jarrett Renshaw and Nichola Groom
(Reuters) -The Biden administration’s five year offshore oil and gas leasing plan will not include any sales in 2024 and will feature the lowest number of auctions in the history of the program in the four years to follow, according to three sources familiar with the plan.
The schedule for leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska for 2024-2028 is due on Friday following several delays and months of battling between environmentalists and drilling advocates over what the policy should look like.
The final plan will mark a dramatic reduction from a proposal the Trump administration had crafted in 2018 that envisioned 47 lease sales, including in areas where leasing has not taken place in years such as California and the Atlantic.
But it will fall short of Biden’s campaign promise to end new federal drilling entirely, after court decisions required continued leasing and last year’s Inflation Reduction Act made them a pre-requisite for new offshore wind power lease auctions.
“The number of oil and gas lease sales will be the lowest in history and will enable the rapid expansion of the offshore wind industry,” one of the sources told Reuters.
