U.S. Department of the Interior
Minerals Management Service
Office of Public Affairs

NEWS RELEASE

MMS AND WYOMING CONTINUE OIL ROYALTY IN KIND SALES

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) and the State of Wyoming today announced the offering of approximately 6,600 barrels of royalty crude oil per day from federal and State properties. This fifth offering continues the ongoing Royalty In Kind (RIK) program partnership between MMS and Wyoming. The State and MMS believe that taking oil royalties as a share of production from the properties offered in the Invitation for Bid (IFB) is a viable alternative to the usual practice of collecting oil royalties in value for sale of the production. Both agencies will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the RIK approach to taking crude oil royalties in Wyoming.

The current sale, No. 1435-02-00-RP-40329, will involve about 6,600 barrels of royalty production from 380 federal and State properties located in the Bighorn and Powder River Basins of Wyoming. Bids will be accepted on specific pipeline subgroups and/or entire packages of Wyoming sweet, sour, and asphaltic sour crude. Delivery of actual production will begin on October 1, 2000, and continue for six months.

Specific information regarding the sale will be available in an Invitation for Bid (IFB) No. 1435-02-00-RP-40329, which is scheduled to be issued around July 25, 2000, and located on the MMS website at http://www.rmp.mms.gov/whatsnew.htm. For additional information contact MMS’s Todd Leneau at (303)275-7385 or Wyoming’s Harold Kemp at (307)777-6643.

MMS is the federal agency that manages the Nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf; and annually collects, accounts for, and disburses about $4 billion in revenues from federal offshore mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on federal and Indian lands.

-MMS-

MMS Internet website address: http://www.mms.gov
24 hour Fax-on-Demand Service:(202) 219-1703