New Orleans (Platts)--28Nov2012/224 pm EST/1924 GMT

ConocoPhillips captured the highest total number of apparent high bids during Wednesday's US Gulf of Mexico lease sale, but Chevron pledged the most money for blocks, according to statistics supplied by the federal sale sponsor.

The bids were submitted during the lease sale in New Orleans and are subject to review by the lease sale sponsor, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

ConocoPhillips showed 62 apparent highest bids, with 46 of those bids in the Alaminos Canyon, according to BOEM.

Tracts in the Alaminos Canyon were the most widely bid during the Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 229. A cluster of blocks in that area received two bids each. For all of those blocks, ConocoPhillips and Chevron were the bidders.

ConocoPhillips also apparently had the highest bids in the East Breaks blocks and Port Isabel.

The East Breaks blocks are located near Anadarko Petroleum's Nansen-Boomvang complex which the company is redeveloping.

Chevron was the apparent highest bidder for a cluster of blocks in the East Breaks area during the sale, elbowing out ExxonMobil and Anadarko.

Chevron bid a total of $56 million to win 28 blocks, according to the data. Chevron bid anywhere from $3.1 million to $17.2 million for the East Break tracts -- far outdistancing the nearest rival offer, BOEM Director Tommy Beaudreau said in reading those bids at the start of the sale. The $17.2 million was the highest of the sale.

The third highest bidder was BHP Billiton with $14.5 million for 10 blocks. ExxonMobil had $5.9 million worth of high bids, according to the data.

ExxonMobil submitted eight bids and apparently had the highest with four of them for a 50% success rate, said ExxonMobil spokesman Patrick McGinn said in an interview after the sale.

"We think the Gulf of Mexico has great potential," McGinn said. It's been a big source of domestic energy for the US for the past 50 years. We think it has the potential for decades more ability to provide domestic energy for the US."

All of the bids apparently captured by ExxonMobil were in deepwater blocks that will take years to develop, McGinn said.

"These are exploration blocks ... there is a long way between exploration and development," he said. "It takes a few years to get to the point where you've selected the exact target you want to go after and you get all the permits. It's a lengthy process."

For the lease sale, 91% of the bids were made for blocks in deepwater of 800 meters or greater. Just 11 bids were placed in shallow waters of 200 meters or less, according to the data. The deepest block receiving a bid was 691 in the Alaminos Canyon at 2,843 meters, according to the data. The block was apparently taken by ExxonMobil, according to the data.

High bids for Wednesday's Western Gulf of Mexico lease sale totaled $133.7 million, while the total amount bid was $157.6 million, BOEM said.

Western Sale 229 captured a total of 131 bids across 116 blocks. By contrast, bidders made 241 offers for 191 tracts in Western Sale 218 in December 2011, BOEM records show. The sum of the high bids for the December sale was $337.6 million, with ConocoPhillips as the top bidder with 75 total high bids totaling $157.8 million.

--Bridget Hunsucker, bridget_hunsucker@platts.com --Edited by Katharine Fraser, katharine_fraser@platts.com