The U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf Region (GOMR) announced at 10 a.m. today that it has received 421 bids from 45 companies on 351 tracts offered in the Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 192.  Lease Sale 192 will take place tomorrow, August 18, 2004 at 9 a.m. at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel, Two Poydras Street, (Versailles Ballroom) in New Orleans, Louisiana.

          This sale will be WebCast as follows:

          Through the Offshore Oil Scouts Association at www.oosa.com. Real Player or Windows
          Media Player 6.4 or higher will need to be installed in order to run the Web cast.
          (Please note that the listing of this webcase on the official MMS web site, as well as the actual
          webcasts of the upcoming MMS lease sales is provided as a courtesy for the public and does not
          imply any endorsement by MMS.)

The Minerals Management Service is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation’s oil, natural gas, and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf in Federal offshore waters.  The agency also collects, accounts for, and disburses mineral revenues from Federal and American Indian lands.  MMS disbursed more than $8 billion in FY 2003 and more than $135 billion since the agency was created in 1982.  Nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund annually for the acquisition and development of state and Federal park and recreation lands.