Volume 68 · 649
Public Law 83–561
To amend section 27 of the Mineral Leasing Act of February 25, 1920, as amended, in order to promote the development of oil and gas on the public domain.
Approved August 2, 1954
Statutory text
AN ACT
To amend section 27 of the Mineral Leasing Act of February 25, 1920, as amended, in order to promote the development of oil and gas on the public domain.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That section 27 of the Act of February 25, 1920, as amended (30 U. S. C. 184), is further amended as follows:
Strike out all of the language preceding the semicolon of the second sentence of section 27, and insert the following in lieu thereof:
Acreage holding restriction.
“No person, association, or corporation, except as herein provided, shall take or hold at one time oil or gas leases exceeding in the aggregate forty-six thousand and eighty acres granted hereunder in any
Alaska.
one State, except that in the Territory of Alaska no person, association, or corporation, except as herein provided, shall take or hold at one time oil or gas leases exceeding in the aggregate one hundred thousand acres granted hereunder;”.
Strike out sentences 5 and 6 of section 27 and insert the following
60 Stat. 954.
Nonrenewable option.
in lieu thereof: “The interest of an optionee under a nonrenewable option to purchase or otherwise acquire one or more oil or gas leases (whether then or thereafter issued), or any interest therein, shall not, prior to the exercise of such option, be a taking or holding or control under the acreage limitations provisions of any section of
Time and acreage limitation.
this Act. No such option shall be entered into for a period of more than three years, without the prior approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and no person, association, or corporation shall hold at one time such options of more than two hundred thousand acres in any one State.”.
Approved August 2, 1954.