The first bid—for a parcel of 901.2 net acres in Eddy County, N.M., about 30 miles southeast of Carlsbad Caverns in the Permian Basin—started unceremoniously at $2 per acre.

Just under nine minutes later, a second bid sucked the air—or whatever equivalent fills the Internet—out of the online auction room: $30,000 per acre.

UPDATE: Matador Revealed As Top Bidder In BLM New Mexico Auction

The parcel, on federal lands just across the border from Loving County, Texas, and near WPX Energy Inc.’s (NYSE: WPX) Stateline area in the Permian’s Delaware Basin, was part of 142 tracts in Eddy and Lea counties, N.M. offered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Sept. 5 and Sept. 6.

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Onshore