The US just canceled the second Gulf of Mexico offshore wind lease sale

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has canceled the second offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico due to “a lack of competitive interest.”

BOEM received 25 comments in response to the March 2024 Proposed Sale Notice, but only one company expressed interest in participating. The federal agency says it may decide to move forward with a lease sale in the future depending on industry interest.

The agency also reported that it’s received an unsolicited lease request from Chicago-based Hecate Energy Gulf Wind to acquire commercial wind energy lease(s) on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. In response, BOEM will investigate whether there’s any competitive interest in the areas included in Hecate Energy’s request, which are off the southeastern Texas coast. BOEM previously identified the areas in 2021 as potential Wind Energy Areas suitable for offshore wind leasing.

The first US Gulf of Mexico offshore wind lease sale in August 2023 saw only one bid despite three lease areas being up for auction. German offshore wind developer RWE won the rights to the 102,480-acre Lake Charles, Louisiana, offshore wind lease area, which has the potential to generate 1.24 GW of offshore wind energy capacity. RWE’s project is expected to be in operation by the mid-2030s.

The two lease areas that got no bids in the first lease sale were Galveston I and Galveston II off Texas, which is unsurprising, as, unlike Louisiana, there isn’t much support coming from Texas.

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