Lease sales hit $8.5MNordAq Energy dominates state North Slope, BLM NPR-A lease sales Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Federal and state oil and gas lease sales held Nov. 6 in Anchorage brought in some $8.5 million in apparent high bids for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, and the federal Bureau of Land Management. This is down from last year, when combined state and federal sales generated $15.1 million, $14.2 million from the state sales.
This year’s sales were dominated by NordAq Energy, a local independent, with combined bids in two sales of $4,335,422.40 for 269,461 acres.
The state had three areawide sales scheduled: Beaufort Sea, North Slope and North Slope Foothills.
No bids were received in the Foothills sale, division Deputy Director Jonne Slemons said at the state bid opening.
The Beaufort Sea sale drew one bidder, independent 70 &148 LLC of Denver, an Armstrong Oil & Gas Inc. company, with some 180,000 acres of state oil and gas leases. The company bid $15.07 an acre on tract 387 and $25.87 an acre on tract 390 — tracts between the Eni-operated Nikaitchuq unit and the Oooguruk unit which Pioneer is in the process of selling to Caelus Energy Alaska.
The total for that sale was $104,806.40 for 5,120 acres.
North Slope sales The state’s North Slope areawide sale was the big sale of the day, drawing eight bidders or bidding groups making 90 bids on 89 tracts and producing an apparent high-bid total of $5,513,208.84 on 162,163 acres.
NordAq Energy took 52 tracts, paying $2,309,054.40 for 74,880 acres, all in a block east of acreage where Great Bear is looking for unconventional resources and just east of tracts held by Royale Energy.
In an email statement after the sales, NordAq, Chick Underwood, NordAq’s vice president land management, said the company was “very pleased” with the acreage it acquired from the state and BLM — the company was the most active bidder in both sales. “We will continue to assess the scope of success with this acquisition in relation to the opportunities believed to be available to NordAq Energy,” he said.
Highest per-acre bid AVCG LLC had the highest per-acre bid and the highest tract bid in the North Slope sale, outbidding the Kuparuk River unit owners $225 to $201.95 per acre for a tract between the Kuparuk River and South Miluveach units. AVCG paid $576,000 for the 2,560-acre tract — the only contested tract in the sale. AVCG is the largest owners at Miluveach which is operated by Brooks Range Petroleum Corp., AVCG’s operating company. AVCG took two other tracts, tract 933 for $85.29 an acre and tract 1053 for $126.29 an acre, both adjacent to its Kachemach unit which is in undeveloped acreage between the Kuparuk and the Colville River units. AVCG’s total for the sale was $1,117,644.80.
ConocoPhillips Alaska, the only major North Slope producer participating in the sale, took 14 tracts, including a single tract southeast of Nuiqsut, adjacent to other Conoco leases, paying $26.88 an acre for 2,560 acres. Thirteen of the tracts the company took, bidding $25.15 to $27.50 an acre, are in a block adjacent to the southeastern boundary of the Prudhoe Bay unit. ConocoPhillips’ totals for the sale were 35,840 acres and $947,916.80.
Great Bear Petroleum Ventures II LLC took 12 tracts, 30,720 acres, for $774,553.60, bidding $25.13 an acre for all tracts.
The company filled in one hole in its existing acreage and took tracts on the eastern edge of its holdings south of the Prudhoe Bay unit.
70 & 148 LLC bid on five tracts, four of them a block between Great Bear and Repsol tracts south of Kuparuk, the fifth close to other 70 & 148 tracts southeast of Nuiqsut. The company paid $25.07 an acre for the tract near Nuiqsut and $29.07 an acre for the block of tracts south of Kuparuk, a total of $231,622.40 for 8,320 acres.
Burgundy Xploration of Houston took two tracts, 2,880 acres, for $97,070.40, bidding $24.77 an acre for one and $41.64 an acre for the other. The tracts are along the trans-Alaska oil pipeline at Franklin Bluffs, south of a block of four tracts held by Paul Basinski, whose Houston address in state records is the same as Burgundy’s.
Savant Alaska, the Badami operator, picked up a single tract, filling in a small block the company already holds south of Point Thomson, paying $19.18 an acre for a 1,892.88-acre tract, a total of $35,346.44.
NPR-A sale NordAq Energy Inc. was also the major bidder in BLM’s NPR-A oil and gas lease sale, which saw three bidders or bidding groups place 22 bids on 22 tracts, a total of $2,885,153 for 245,293 acres.
The highest per-acre bid in this sale was $52.11 an acre from ConocoPhillips Alaska for tract H-167, 3,840 acres adjacent to the ConocoPhillips-operated Mooses Tooth unit. ConocoPhillips also bid $33.77 an acre for tract L-133 in the middle of 13 ConocoPhillips-Anadarko Petroleum tracts southwest of Mooses Tooth. ConocoPhillips bid $586,736 for the two tracts, a total of 15,289 acres.
ConocoPhillips, in partnership with Anadarko, is a major NPR-A leaseholder.
NordAq bid $2,026,368 on 17 NPR-A tracts, almost 195,000 acres. All of these tracts surround that same ConocoPhillips-Anadarko acreage southwest of Mooses Tooth. NordAq bid amounts ranging from $6.10 an acre to $6.16 an acre for most of the tracts, but bid $42.74 and $42.84 an acre for two tracts north of the Conoco-Anadarko acreage, L-176 and L-177. L-176 is the site of the Husky/USGS Inigok Test Well No. 1, which according to a description on a Mapmakers Alaska map of the lease sale area had oil and gas shows and was plugged and abandoned in 1979.
NordAq holds a major NPR-A acreage position in Smith Bay and tracts onshore trending southwest from Smith Bay.
A bidding group of 50 percent Paul Craig and 50 percent Peter Zamarello took two tracts near Umiat in the southern part of the sale, bidding $7.68 an acre, $88,297 each for the 11,497-acre tracts. A bidding group of Craig, 25 percent, Zamarello 50 percent and Paul Gardner 25 percent took a third tract in the Umiat area, also bidding $7.68 an acre, $95,455 for the 12,429-acre tract.
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