Two spring areawide lease sales June 21

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, has scheduled bid openings for the annual areawide Cook Inlet and Alaska Peninsula lease sales for June 21 at the Atwood Building in Anchorage.

Sealed bids are due June 19 by 4 p.m.

The Alaska Peninsula areawide sale covers some 4 million onshore and 1.75 million offshore acres, with 1,047 tracts ranging from 640 to 5,760 acres on the north side of the Alaska Peninsula from the Nushagak Peninsula south and west to the vicinity of Cold Bay.

There has been almost no recent leasing interest in the Alaska Peninsula in the last decade. The state received no bids in the last two Alaska Peninsula areawide sales, and while two bidders bid in the 2014 sale, taking three tracts, the leases are no longer active.

While the state received no bids in the 2016 Cook Inlet areawide oil and gas lease sale that area typically has drawn at least some interest. The Cook Inlet areawide encompasses some 4.2 million gross acres, 815 tracts ranging from 640 to 5,760 acres in the Municipality of Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna and Kenai boroughs. Cook Inlet acreage receiving bids in recent years ranged from a low of 5,733 acres in 2009 to a high of 449,164 acres in 2011.

Details on the sales are available on the division’s website at http://dog.dnr.alaska.gov/Leasing/SaleDocuments.htm.

- KRISTEN NELSON