The US government has released more details on the oil and gas lease sale that will offer more than 20 million acres offshore in the Western Gulf of Mexico (GoM) Planning Area.

Western GoM Lease Sale 229, which will be held on Nov. 28 in New Orleans, will be the first offshore sale under the Obama administration’s new Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-17. The sale makes available for exploration and development all of the offshore areas with the highest conventional resource potential, which together include more than 75% of the nation’s undiscovered, technically recoverable offshore oil and gas resources, according to a news release.

The sale will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area – encompassing 3,873 blocks and covering roughly 20.8 million acres, located from nine to 250 miles offshore, in water depths ranging from 5 m (16 ft) to 3,346 m (10,975 ft), the release said.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) estimates the proposed lease sale could result in the production of 116 MMbbl to 200 MMbbl  of oil and 538 Bcf to 938 Bcf of natural gas.

The next Central GoM lease sale, offering 38 million acres, is scheduled for March 20.

The most recent sale in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning area, Western Gulf of Mexico Sale 218, took place on Dec. 14, 2011. BOEM awarded 181 leases on tracts covering 1,036,205 acres, the release said.  The accepted high bids were valued at about $325 million.