In assembling that current sale schedule, Interior Department officials insisted private companies should first conduct geophysical research to get a sense of the area’s potential oil and gas resources before the government makes any leasing decisions or schedules sales.
This is like someone saying, “you take the car in,
pay to have it checked out, and if it’s good, we’ll tell you how much we want for it”.
Close. They will offer it for sale to your competitors, too.
I wouldn't invest millions of dollars (tens of millions?--I work onshore, not off) in doing the seismic surveys with no guarantees that I'd even be able to drill if I found something. There is too much low hanging fruit in the oil and gas world to operate under those terms.