Ten companies hold North Slope federal lease acreage

Kristen Nelson

PNA News Editor

Onshore and offshore Alaska, 10 companies hold 1.24 million acres of federal lease acreage on the outer continental shelf and in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (see chart this page).

OCS acreage is of varying vintage; all of the NPR-A acreage dates from the lease sale held by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in May.

ARCO Alaska Inc. (acreage includes that originally won by Union Texas Petroleum) is the top federal acreage holder, with 545,244 acres, 44 percent of the total. ARCO holds 26 percent of OCS acreage and 52 percent of NPR-A acreage.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is second, with less than 2 percent of OCS acreage but 21 percent of NPR-A acreage, a total of 187,357 acres.

Phillips Petroleum Co. ranks third, with 16 percent of OCS acreage and 13.5 percent of NPR-A acreage, a total of 176,842 acres.

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. ranks fourth, with 12 percent of OCS acreage and 10 percent of NPR-A acreage, 129,851 acres.

Gov. Tony Knowles has set as one of the demands for state approval of the BP Amoco acquisition of ARCO that BP Amoco divest itself of some of its NPR-A acreage. If BP Amoco and ARCO acreage is combined, BP Exploration (Alaska) would control 54.4 percent of North Slope federal acreage, 38 percent of OCS acreage and 62 percent of NPR-A acreage.

Other companies control only 16 percent of federal North Slope lease acreage — but 44 percent of OCS acreage, led by Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (14 percent) and Petrofina Delaware (17 percent).