Important Information About Nominations
An Expression of Interest (EOI) is an informal request by the public that identifies lands the BLM should consider for inclusion in future oil and gas competitive lease sales. You may submit your EOI via the public portal of the National Fluids Lease Sale System (NFLSS). Once you submit your EOIs via the NFLSS public portal, the EOIs will be routed to the appropriate state office automatically.
No specific form or filing fee is required to submit an EOI.
EOIs are not automatically placed on a lease sale and the submission of an EOI does not guarantee these lands will be offered at auction. The BLM reviews the lands nominated from EOIs to ensure the lands are available, eligible, and suitable for leasing. In addition, during review, the BLM may identify conditions or restrictions on oil and gas activities to protect the environment. If your EOI includes lands where the surface is managed by another Federal agency, the BLM is required to obtain consent and recommendations from that surface managing agency (SMA) before placing the lands on a Notice of Competitive Lease Sale. In some instances, it may be necessary to update environmental documents to include current conditions. Therefore, the time required to process individual EOIs will vary. For more information regarding processing time for specific EOIs, please contact the applicable State Offices. Regulations pertaining to competitive leasing can be found at 43 Code of Federal Regulations 3120. Prior to submitting your EOI, the BLM public records should be reviewed to make certain the lands are available for leasing. Below are a few instances where lands are not available for leasing:
- Lands currently leased for oil and gas
- Lands where the oil and gas mineral estate is not federally owned
- Lands within city limits
- Lands withdrawn from mineral leasing
- Lands within an Indian Reservation
In checking the public records, make certain that:
- Expired leases have not been extended beyond their expiration date by either diligently drilling wells, unit approval, etc.
- Terminated leases are not in the process of being reinstated.
Please visit the BLM website at www.blm.gov for the appropriate BLM state office having jurisdiction over the lands you have identified in your EOI. Some BLM state offices have additional suggestions for submitting nominations that may reduce the processing time.
Please ensure your EOI contains the following information:
- After reviewing the BLM's land status records, complete legal land description including state, county, meridian, township, range, section, and aliquot part or other appropriate specific land description such as lot number, tract number, or metes and bounds description.
- If your nomination includes "split estate lands" (private surface/Federal minerals), your EOI must include the name and mailing address of the current private surface owner(s). This information should be referenced to the appropriate legal description. Whenever a split estate parcel is included in an oil and gas Notice of Competitive Lease Sale, the BLM will send a courtesy letter to the surface owner(s). The letter will provide the surface owner notice of the scheduled auction as well as information about the BLM's regulations and procedures for Federal oil and gas leasing and development on split estate lands.
Optional Information
- Your contact information - The BLM will make public the name, address, date submitted, and land description in your EOI submission. EOI submitters who consider their name and address confidential should not include that information in their EOI. The BLM no longer requires submitters of EOIs to provide their name or address so EOIs can be submitted anonymously. However, without contact information, the BLM can't reach the EOI submitter for questions or clarifications if needed.
- Parcel configurations - If your EOI contains lands not within a 6-mile square area, please configure the lands into the parcels as you would like to see them on a Notice of Competitive Lease Sale. Parcels will not exceed 2,560 acres on the Notice of Competitive Lease Sale, so if your EOI contains more than 2,560 acres and you have not configured or prioritized your parcels, the BLM will parcel the lands, which may not agree with the parcel configuration you prefer. In addition, do not mix public domain and acquired lands in your parcel configurations. These two land types cannot be issued under one lease. The BLM reserves the right to adjust the parcel size as needed.