BLM Opens 35,000 California Acres to December Oil and Gas Lease Sale

The Bureau of Land Management said it will put roughly 35,000 acres in California up for oil and gas lease on December 1, offering 43 parcels located in Kern, Kings, Fresno and San Luis Obispo counties. The planned sale follows BLM decisions in June that allowed federal leasing to resume in the agency's Bakersfield and Central Coast planning areas after extended litigation and environmental reviews. BLM noted that federal drilling activity in California is concentrated in Kern County, where established federal fields account for more than 95% of the state's federal drilling. Those operations support about 3,500 jobs and generate over $200 million in annual economic activity, the agency said. Federal royalties tied to the region are estimated at roughly $65 million to $90 million per year, with about half of those funds returned to California. The list of parcels for December was slightly reduced from an August proposal that included 44 parcels totaling about 36,000 acres. A 30-day protest period for the sale opened on Wednesday and runs through November 2. Successful bidders would still need to file individual applications to drill; each application would trigger separate BLM reviews and environmental analyses before any development could begin. California has been increasingly reliant on foreign crude: according to California Energy Commission data cited by the source, refineries in the state received 119.9 million barrels of foreign crude in the first half of 2026, about 56% of refinery crude supply. Domestic California production accounted for roughly 25% of that supply during the same period. The December auction will determine which companies gain lease rights to the offered acreage, but any new production from those leases would be years away and contingent on multiple permitting steps.