Today, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is making available the Proposed Notice of Sale for Western Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Sale 177. The sale is scheduled for August 23, 2000, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

        Sale 177 encompasses 3,779 unleased blocks, about 20.57 million acres in the Western GOM Outer Continental Shelf Planning Area offshore Texas and in deeper waters offshore Louisiana. The blocks are located from 9 to 200 miles offshore in water depths ranging from 8 meters to more than 3,000 meters. There are 2,152 blocks in water depths of 200 meters or more.

        This is the fifth sale in the Western Gulf of Mexico and the eighth sale overall in which blocks receiving bids in water depths of 200 meters or more are eligible for consideration under provisions of the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act. The Proposed Notice of Sale offers all blocks in water depths of less than 800 meters for a minimum bid of $25 per acre. The minimum bid on blocks in water depths of 800 meters or deeper is $37.50 per acre.

        The Proposed Notice of Sale will be posted on the MMS Website at http://www.mms.gov. In addition, copies of the document are available from MMS’s Gulf of Mexico Regional Office, Public Information Unit, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans Louisiana 70123. Telephone (504) 736-2591, toll free 1-800-200-GULF.

• Annual Rental Rates: $5.00 per acre or fraction thereof — Water depths less than 200 meters — 1,627 blocks$7.50 per acre or fraction thereof — Water depths 200 meters or deeper — 2,152 blocks

         MMS is the Federal Agency that manages the Nation’s natural gas, oil, and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf, and collects, accounts for, and last year disbursed about $6 billion in revenues from offshore Federal mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on Federal and Indian lands.