Minerals Management Services

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Royalty Management Program administered by the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS). GAO found that: (1) numerous studies and audits have identified continuing data reliability problems affecting the MMS royalty management program; (2) MMS recently modified its implementation plans by including steps to improve automated royalty management services, but has not resolved data reliability problems associated with onshore oil and gas production data that determine royalty collections and disbursements; and (3) the MMS system improvement plan was a positive step toward addressing problems with its automated royalty management system.