30 CFR § 203.80 - When can I get royalty relief if I am not eligible for royalty relief under other sections in the subpart?

---
identifier: "/us/cfr/t30/s203.80"
source: "ecfr"
legal_status: "authoritative_unofficial"
title: "30 CFR § 203.80 - When can I get royalty relief if I am not eligible for royalty relief under other sections in the subpart?"
title_number: 30
title_name: "Mineral Resources"
section_number: "203.80"
section_name: "When can I get royalty relief if I am not eligible for royalty relief under other sections in the subpart?"
chapter_name: "BUREAU OF SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR"
subchapter_number: "A"
subchapter_name: "MINERALS REVENUE MANAGEMENT"
part_number: "203"
part_name: "RELIEF OR REDUCTION IN ROYALTY RATES"
positive_law: false
currency: "2026-03-24"
last_updated: "2026-03-24"
format_version: "1.1.0"
generator: "[email protected]"
authority: "25 U.S.C. 396  25 U.S.C. 396a  25 U.S.C. 2101  30 U.S.C. 181  30 U.S.C. 351  30 U.S.C. 1001  30 U.S.C. 1701  31 U.S.C. 9701; 42 U.S.C. 15903-15906; 43 U.S.C. 1301  43 U.S.C. 1331  and 43 U.S.C. 1801"
regulatory_source: "76 FR 64462, Oct. 18, 2011, unless otherwise noted."
cfr_part: "203"
---


# 203.80 When can I get royalty relief if I am not eligible for royalty relief under other sections in the subpart?

We may grant royalty relief when it serves the statutory purposes summarized in § 203.1 and our formal relief programs, including but not limited to the applicable levels of the royalty suspension volumes and price thresholds, provide inadequate encouragement to promote development or increase production. Unless your lease lies offshore of Alaska or wholly west of 87 degrees, 30 minutes West longitude in the GOA, your lease must be producing to qualify for relief. Before you may apply for royalty relief apart from our programs for end-of-life leases or for pre-Act deep water leases and development and expansion projects, we must agree that your lease or project has two or more of the following characteristics:

(a) The lease has produced for a substantial period and the lessee can recover significant additional resources. Significant additional resources mean enough to allow production for at least a year more than would be profitable without royalty relief.

(b) Valuable facilities (e.g., a platform or pipeline that would be removed upon lease relinquishment) exist that we do not expect a successor lessee to use. If the facilities are located off the lease, their preservation must depend on continued production from the lease applying for royalty relief. We will only consider an allocable share of costs for off-lease facilities in the relief application.

(c) A substantial risk exists that no new lessee will recover the resources.

(d) The lessee made major efforts to reduce operating costs too recently to use the formal program for royalty relief (e.g., recent significant change in operations).

(e) Circumstances beyond the lessee's control, other than water depth, preclude reliance on one of the existing royalty relief programs.

[76 FR 64462, Oct. 18, 2011, as amended at 90 FR 44326, Sept. 15, 2025]