BLM sets October 27 auction for 19 California geothermal parcels

The Bureau of Land Management will hold a competitive geothermal lease sale on October 27, 2026 for 19 parcels of public land in California, the bureau announced on September 11, 2026. The sale notice, dated the same day, puts the acreage at 39,723.81 in six counties: eight Ridgecrest Field Office parcels in Inyo County total 23,094.67 acres, four Bishop parcels in Mono County 8,619.73 acres, five Ukiah parcels in Lake and Sonoma counties 5,732.09 acres, one Applegate parcel in Modoc County 2,117.68 acres, and one El Centro parcel in Imperial County 159.64 acres. The minimum bid is $2 an acre and each parcel listing carries a 1.75% royalty rate; half of the bids, rentals, and royalties go to the state, a quarter to the county, and a quarter to the U.S. Treasury, per the release.

The two documents keep different clocks. The release says bidding opens at 8 a.m. Pacific Time; the notice says the open bidding period begins at 10 a.m. Mountain Time, which is 9 a.m. Pacific. Both give each parcel a one-hour window. The release sends bidders to EnergyNet and the notice to Efficient Markets; the EnergyNet government-listings link in the release redirects to the Efficient Markets auction site. Among the notice's stipulations, three Inyo County parcels carry a no-surface-occupancy condition for proximity to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, and two Mono County parcels carry one for Bi-State sage-grouse proposed critical habitat.

The sale is the fourth listed on the bureau's California geothermal page, after sales on September 11, 2014, October 26, 2016, and August 26, 2025. The bureau said on August 27, 2025 that the 2025 sale drew winning bids on 13 parcels across 22,685 acres in Imperial, Lassen, and Modoc counties for $2,711,858, an average of $117 per acre offered. An instruction memorandum dated December 16, 2025 directs BLM state offices to hold competitive geothermal lease sales annually where nominations are pending, and says the Geothermal Steam Act requires one at least every two years in such states. The private route to geothermal acreage ran the same week: on September 10, 2026, Hexagon Energy announced it had leased the geothermal rights on about 145,000 acres of Weyerhaeuser timberland in Oregon and Washington.