Top bidders included Shell Offshore, Statoil, Chevron and Hess Corp, each offering more than $44 million for access to offshore exploration and production, according to federal records. Offshore energy companies ponied up more than $315 million in bids to lease 913,542 acres in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Wednesday. The lease sale is the final one in the GOM under the Obama Administration’s Five-Year Plan, which made available all offshore areas with the greatest resource potential from 2012 through 2017. The first 11 sales in the program netted more than $3 billion in bid revenue on almost 73 million acres for development, according to information from the Interior Department. The top five bidders included major oil and gas companies: Shell Offshore – $61 million Statoil – $51 million Chevron Corp. – $50 million Hess Corp. – $44 million ExxonMobil – $22 […]