WASHINGTON – Dozens of energy companies bid Tuesday to explore nearly two million acres of the western Gulf of Mexico for oil and natural gas, but no offers were made for 90 percent of the acreage on the auction block.

The Interior Department on Tuesday received 423 bids from 47 companies to explore a swath of the Gulf of Mexico off Texas. The bids cover 319 of the 3,412 tracts the federal government put up for lease, or about 10 percent of the 18 million acres available.

Randall Luthi, director of the department's Minerals Management Service, called the sale “an important next step in the journey to ensuring the nation's energy security.”

But the preliminary results of the lease sale also underscore the problems politicians face in arguing for more domestic production to ease high energy prices: Making more land available does not necessarily mean it will be drilled. Also, most of Tuesday's offers – 237 – were for 10-year terms, an extended timetable that will have little impact on gasoline prices now.

The sale is the first since President Bush last month lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and urged Congress to lift its drilling moratorium in the same areas. Republicans have made offshore drilling a rallying cry for their candidates in November, and Democrats just recently have signaled a willingness to consider allowing four states in the Southeast to opt out of the moratorium.

A year ago, 40 companies vied for 282 tracts in the annual western Gulf lease sale. More than 3,000 tracts were offered. The highest bid, $37.6 million, was made by StatoilHydro USA, a subsidiary of a Norwegian oil company. The winning bids in the latest round will be announced Wednesday in New Orleans.

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