State issues new 5-year lease schedule
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has released the state’s five-year oil and gas leasing program, reorganizing its schedule. (See detailed Alaska oil and gas lease schedule on page 17 of this issue.)
The Division of Oil and Gas called for comments Feb. 9 for October 2006 North Slope and Beaufort Sea areawide sales. What would have been the 2005 North Slope and Beaufort Sea sales will be held March 1; the October sales will be labeled 2006A.
The division’s new schedule shows the North Slope and Beaufort Sea sales remaining in October through 2010.
Cook Inlet and North Slope Foothills areawide sales are scheduled for this May, but beginning in 2007 the North Slope Foothills sale will move to February along with the Alaska Peninsula areawide sale.
The Cook Inlet areawide sale will remain in May.
The division said it leased 558,756 acres in 2004 at four areawide lease sales, with high bonus bids of $13.6 million.
Three sales were held in 2005, with 513,745 acres leased for $3.1 million. The 2005 North Slope and Beaufort Sea areawide sales, typically the state’s most lucrative, were deferred to 2006.
—Kristen Nelson
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