The U.S. Administration is holding this week an oil and gas lease sale in New Mexico while American producers curtail production in response to low oil prices and environmentalists and indigenous groups protest lease sales and drilling plans. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has scheduled the oil and gas lease sale in New Mexico for the week starting May 18, and the online auction is set to begin on May 20 and end on May 21. BLM proposes to offer 95 parcels totaling 45,446 acres in Chaves, Eddy, and Lea counties in New Mexico; and Wise County in Texas. The oil and gas lease sale in the state home to the westernmost part of the Permian basin will be the first auction for drilling on federal land since U.S. benchmark prices flipped negative in April a day before the expiry of the May futures contract of WTI Crude. […]