The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has postponed an auction for the West Antelope III coal lease tract in Wyoming and is still processing an auction of southeast Montana land that occurred early this week.
BLM received one bid for the West Antelope III sale, but returned the offer before the auction was to take place on Wednesday because the response was less robust response than hoped, the US Interior Department said Thursday.
BLM is still processing the one bid it received in Monday's auction for leasing federal land near Navajo Transitional Energy Company's (NTEC) Spring Creek mine in Montana. NTEC bid about $186,500 for the Montana land, but Interior said the bid did not meet the requirements of the Federal Mineral Leasing Act. Interior was not more specific on that claim.
Interior declined to disclose financial details of the bid it received for the West Antelope III tract. It also did not name the bidder or specify a new date when BLM might hold the sale. The bidder most likely was NTEC, which asked BLM in July to initiate the lease auction process.
NTEC did not respond to requests for comment.
Both coal lease tracts are in the Powder River basin (PRB), the largest US coal-producing region, and have the potential for multiple years of production. The West Antelope III property is near NTEC's Antelope mine and has just over 3,500 acres estimated to hold 365mn short tons (st), or 331mn metric tonnes, of recoverable coal. The lease in Montana is for nearly 1,263 acres holding 167.5mn st of coal.
Interior said it "had hoped for stronger participation" and blamed the limited interest on policies of the previous Democratic presidential administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Those policies "aimed to dismantle domestic production and shake investor confidence in the industry", Interior said.
