OCR Text |
Show Bin to rniso oil gas fees Certain fees involvlngnew non-competitive federal oil and gas leases will increase on February 1 under new regulations reg-ulations just announced by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The annual rental for noncompetitive non-competitive and so-called "simultaneous" leases will increase to $1 per acre from the current $.50, but the proposed increases will not affect leases already in force Also, the application fee for transfer of Interest in such leases will increase from $10 to $5, but fees for the transfer of "royalty" interest inter-est will remain at $10. There will be no Increase in the initial $10 filing fee for lease offers or simultaneous simul-taneous entries. The fee increases were proposed by Interior's Bureau of Land Management to help meet increased costs of processing and approving lease applications. These fees have not changed chang-ed since 1960 according to BLM Director Curt Berk-lund Berk-lund who added, "This action ac-tion will raise the Federal Government's fee schedule to that charged by most States, and paid on private leases." The fee increase was originally orig-inally proposed on March 18, 1976 with provisions for the standard 30 -day period for public comments, suggestions sug-gestions or objections. This time limit was subsequently subsequent-ly extended for an additional addition-al 15 days. After review of the more than 200 comments com-ments received, BLM changed chang-ed the effective date from July 1, 1976 to February 1, 1977, and dropped a proposed pro-posed Increase in application fees for the transfer of roy- j alty Interest. The simultaneous oil and gas leasing program is used 1 to lease federal minerals where previous leases have expired, been relinquished, or terminated. The leases . are offered without com- tltive bidding through a I "sumultaneous" drawing ; from entries of all applicants , j for a particular lease tract. I |