Wyoming’s final oil and gas lease sale of 2025 proved paltry for the state, as only two of 34 parcels available received bids.
Neither of the companies that participated were based in Wyoming.
That was no surprise to Casper landman Steve Degenfelder.
That’s because the Dec. 30 sale was a carryover from a larger sale that took place Dec. 3. According to Congress' “Big Beautiful Bill” Act passed last year, a second lease sale is required to be held within 30 days of any sale in which 25% or more of the acreage offered is not leased.
The Dec. 3 sale left about 33% of available land unclaimed.
“Why do you think people are going to bid on tracts they could have bid on previously if the terms haven’t changed?” Degenfelder asked. He said he brought that question to the state’s BLM director shortly before Christmas, and he did not receive an answer.
Now What?
What happens to the parcels that did not receive bids remains unknown. Under the Big Beautiful Bill Act, will the tracts have to be listed again within 30 days? Are incentives being considered, such as making the tracts available for non-competitive leasing, to make the land more appealing to gas and oil companies?
The Wyoming BLM again on Tuesday deferred questions to the Department of Interior.
“Until the Department of the Interior provides further guidance or establishes any potential regulations, the decision regarding issuance of a parcel non-competitively is deferred,” BLM Public Affairs Specialist Caleb Rosenberger said in an email statement to Cowboy State Daily.
BLM state director Kris Kirby did not return Cowboy State Daily’s phone call before publication.
Cowboy State Daily reached out to U.S. Rep.Harriet Hageman’s office but did not receive a response prior to publication. Hageman is on the Natural Resources Committee, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management.
Before the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law by then-President Joe Biden, any lease that did not receive an initial bid was available to file on openly. It was a way to make less desirable tracts of land more desirable, Degenfelder said.
Rosenberger said in his statement that the state BLM office has not considered incentivizing the state’s lease sales to make the land more appealing.
The two companies who bid on Wyoming land on Dec. 30 are listed in BLM documents as Petro LLC, out of Denver, and R&R Royalty LTD, of Corpus Christi, Texas. Each bid on 80 acres – Petro LLC in Laramie County and R&R Royalty LTD in Niobrara County. Phone calls to both companies were not returned.
Degenfelder said he watched the Dec. 30 lease sale but did not bid on anything.
Federal Guidance Needed
What happens to the remaining 32 parcels remains unclear.
Brad Purdy, senior advisor for Wyoming’s BLM office, previously told Cowboy State Daily that the future of the unbid parcels remains in the hands of politicians at the federal level.
“Those are questions that have to go to the politicals higher up,” he said. “What happens to those parcels after [the Dec. 30 lease sale], I don’t know. We have to wait to see what the interpretation of HR 1 (the Big Beautiful Bill Act) is.”
Oil and gas lease sales in Wyoming picked up dramatically in 2025 after hitting record lows under former President Joe Biden’s administration. The Dec. 30 lease sale marked the sixth such sale in 2025. It followed a much slower 2024, when only two oil and gas lease sales were held in Wyoming, offering a total of 60,568 acres. Roughly half of the acreage offered was leased, generating revenue just shy of $11 million.
Wyoming’s next gas and oil lease sale is scheduled for March 3, well outside of the 30-day re-listing requirement of unclaimed parcels. A 30-day public comment period closes on Jan. 20 for a planned lease sale in June that will include 112 oil and gas parcels totaling 120,927 Wyoming acres.
