Baton Rouge: The State Mineral and Energy Board conducted its monthly meeting and lease sale in the LaBelle Room of the LaSalle Office Building in Baton Rouge.

The Board collected more than $4.2 million in bonuses in the July sale. For the calendar year, the total is more than $28.2 million.

At this month’s lease sale, the Board awarded 54 leases covering more than 6000 acres, out of 79 nominated tracts covering more than 37,000 acres.

The Board sold leases in Acadia, Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bossier, Caddo, Calcasieu, Cameron, Claiborne, De Soto, East Feliciana, Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Plaquemines, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Mary, Union and Vermilion parishes. Of the 54 tracts awarded, 26 were in north Louisiana and 28 were located in the southern parishes.

In Avoyelles, Anadarko bid $226.51 per acre for leasing of 156 state owned lands with a .225 royalty. That brought in $35,335.56 for goverment owned lands in Avoyelles. The price per acre was up from $205.89 paid in the June sale of Avoyelles lands.

Anadarko is currently drilling a deep horizontal well south of Goudeau on the Avoyelles/St. Landry Parish border. They are actively leasing land in the southern Avoyelles area, above the Austin Chalk formation which runs through Cenla.

JUNE SALE

In the previous month, the Louisiana Mineral and Energy Board collected about $2.3 million for the June sale of mineral rights on state- and local-government owned land.

This month, the board awarded 24 leases covering about 2,800 acres out of 49 available tracts covering about 40,000 acres.

Of the 24 tracts awarded, eight were in northern Louisiana and 16 were in southern parishes.

The board sold leases in Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Cameron, Concordia, DeSoto, East Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lafourche, Plaquemines, St. Charles, St. Martin and Terrebonne parishes.