Preliminary finding for North Slope sales

Petroleum News

Every 10 years the state does a best interest finding for its areawide oil and gas lease sales and it has just issued a preliminary BIF for the North Slope.

In a Jan. 31 preliminary BIF, the director of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas has found that the disposal of oil and gas resources in the North Slope areawide sale area is in the best interest of the state. The North Slope areawide sale includes all available state-owned lands between the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the west and the Canning River on the east, and from the Beaufort Sea in the north to the Umiat meridian baseline in the south, some 5.1 million gross acres.

The preliminary finding is available on the division’s website at https://dog.dnr.alaska.gov/Home/Newsroom.

The division said the preliminary BIF is subject to revision based on public comments received by the division, which are due in writing by April 2. Following review of those comments, the director will make a final determination.

Some nine months prior to each lease sale the division issues a call for new information requesting substantial new information that has become available since the most recent finding, providing a public participation period of not less than 30 days.

- Petroleum News