Kevin Banks, acting director of the state’s Division of Oil and Gas, said that further leasing in both areas depends on some required actions by the federal government. In the Brooks Range Foothills (referred to as North Slope Foothills by the state), there is a large swath of land that remains to be conveyed from the federal government to either the state or Arctic Slope Regional Corp., Banks said.

“A good deal of the (existing) state acreage is now under lease,” Banks said.

And in the Alaska Peninsula area, industry is anticipating a federal offshore Bristol Bay lease sale in the North Aleutian basin, he said.

Banks also told Petroleum News that expansion capability for a future North Slope gas pipeline is critical to future leasing and development in the foothills.

Hewitt Mineral told Petroleum News that the Alaska Peninsula tract it bought consolidates the company’s lease position southwest of Port Moller. Hewitt Mineral bought four tracts in that area in the October 2005 lease sale. Since that earlier lease sale the company has been researching Alaska Peninsula geology and has identified what it believes to be a new natural gas play in Triassic hydrothermal dolostones.