The Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas unveiled results from its North Slope, Beaufort Sea and North Slope Foothills areawide lease sales this morning, with the Slope drawing some $6.8 million and the Beaufort just over $200,000 in bids; there were no bids in the Foothills sale.
There were also no overlapping bids among the 112 the state received for the North Slope sale and three for the Beaufort Sea sale.
The state switched to online bidding last year, initiating that process with its 2020 Cook Inlet and Alaska Peninsula areawide sales. This is the first time the North Slope area sales have been held online.
Great Bear Petroleum Ventures II was the largest bidder in the North Slope sale, with bids totaling $3,274,329.60 on 66,240 acres, 47.8% of the dollars bid for an average of $49.43 an acre on 36.1% of the acreage.
Great Bear also had the highest per-acre bids in the sale, bidding over $100 an acre on four tracts.
Oil Search Alaska LLC bid $2,090,347.20 on 66,240 acres (the total acreage was the same for each of the top two bidders), 30.5% of the dollars bid for 36.1% of the acreage, paying an average of $31.56 per acre.
Lagniappe Alaska had bids totaling $971,468.8 on 33,280 acres, 14.2% of the dollars bid for 18.1% of the acreage, an average bid of $29.19 an acre.
A new bidder, Arctic Circle Exploration LLC, bid $510,873.60 for 17,920 acres, 7.5% of the dollars bid for 9.8% of the acreage, an average of $28.51 per acre.
Hilcorp North Slope, the Hilcorp entity which took over as operator at Prudhoe Bay, was the only bidder in the Beaufort Sea sale, with bids totaling $206,379.36, each of the bids at $27.27 per acre.
- KRISTEN NELSON
See story in Jan. 17 issue of Petroleum News, available online Friday, Jan. 15, at www.petroleumnews.com.
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