U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

About The BLM Oil and Gas Program

Americans enjoy a quality of life today that depends largely upon a stable and abundant supply of affordable energy. The Federal energy portfolio managed by the BLM includes oil and gas, coal, oil shale and tar sands and increasingly, renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal.

Oil and gas from public and Indian lands are significant part of this energy mix, For fiscal year 2017, sales of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids produced on Federal and Indian lands accounted for approximately 7 percent of all oil, 9 percent of all natural gas, and 6 percent of all natural gas liquids produced in the United States.

The BLM manages the Federal government’s onshore subsurface mineral estate – about 700 million acres (30% of the U.S.) held by the BLM, U.S. Forest Service and other Federal agencies and other surface owners -- for the benefit of the American public.  It also manages some aspects of the oil and gas development for Indian tribes.

But not every acre of that land is being developed for energy.  About 26 million acres are under lease to oil and gas developers at the end of Fiscal Year 2017.  Of that, about 12.8 million acres are producing oil and gas in economic quantities.  This activity came from approximately 94,000 wells on nearly 24,000 producing oil and gas leases.

In FY 2017 the BLM generated approximately $2.2 billion in Federal royalties, rental payments and bonus bids, all of which were split between the U.S. Treasury and the states where the development occurred, which is second only to the IRS.  The program spent about $155 million appropriated from Congress in FY 2017.