The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has published details on an upcoming geothermal lease sale for 68 parcels in New Mexico with a total acreage of 197,851.870. The lease sale will be held on 16 June 2026 at 09:00 – 10:00 AM CT / 08:00 – 09:00 AM MT through the Efficient Markets portal.
The sale covers parcels across Doña Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, and Sierra counties. For each parcel leased, 25% of the bid, rental receipts, and subsequent royalties will go to the U.S. Treasury, 25% will go to the county where the lease is located, and the remaining 50% will go to the State of New Mexico. Leasing is the first step in the process to develop federal geothermal resources.
The location map of the parcels to be offered is below:
Downloadable shapefiles of the parcels are available through this link. More information on the parcels and the lease sale process are available in this document.
Around a year ago, a report published by Project InnerSpace indicated that New Mexico has 163 GW of geothermal potential. New Mexico currently has one operational geothermal power facility – the Lighting Dock project which was acquired by Zanskar and repowered to its full capacity by drilling a new production well. XGS Energy is also planning a 150-MW geothermal power facility in New Mexico in partnership with Meta.
The following are the other BLM geothermal lease sales planned later this year:
- Utah – August 2026
- Nevada – October 2026
- Idaho – November 2026
Source: Bureau of Land Management
