State considering various royalty deals

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is considering a request from William D. Armstrong to transfer a 0.83333 percent royalty interest in some 140 North Slope and Beaufort Sea wells to GMT Exploration North Slope Royalty Co. LLC. The Armstrong Oil & Gas subsidiary 70 & 148 LLC and GMT Exploration Co. have been partnering on a broad-reaching North Slope exploration and development program for several years.

The state is also considering a request from Betty J. Hickel to transfer various small royalty interests - all less than 0.6 percent - in various segments of four Cook Inlet leases to the Betty Jean Hickel Revocable Trust. The leases - ADL 733, ADL 2095, ADL 391210 and ADL 391211 - comprise the onshore North Fork unit.

The state is considering a request from the Estate of George Kasper to transfer various small royalty interests - all less than 1.5 percent - in four Cook Inlet leases to Arlene Kasper. The leases - ADL 374002, ADL 378114, ADL 381201 and ADL 381203 - are all associated with the Redoubt unit. And the state is also considering a request from Steven Button to transfer various small royalty interests - all less than 1 percent - in the same four Redoubt unit leases to the Stephen D. Button Restated Revocable Trust.

Finally, in July, the BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. lease ADL 391470 expired. The lease was contiguous to the northern boundary of the BP-operated Prudhoe Bay unit.

- A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska was a research tool used in preparing this story.

- Eric Lidji