Low oil and gas prices have lessened pressure from producers for the Obama administration to expand the plays it plans to offer in its five-year plan for offshore leasing, US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Tuesday. Prices have had a “significant impact” on efforts from the offshore industry to expand offshore leasing and likely diminished interest in last month’s Gulf of Mexico lease sale, Jewell said during a Christian Science Monitor event. That US Western Gulf sale yielded total high bids of $22.7 million, the smallest Western sale in over 30 years and just 20% of the $110 million yielded in last year’s comparable sale. Jewell said it was a “reasonable conclusion” that low prices caused that relatively low interest from producers and indicated interest in future lease sales likely would not grow if prices remained low. Oil and gas companies, she said, have become “pickier” about where they […]