MHT to hold inlet lease sale

The Mental Health Trust Land Office has scheduled a competitive oil and gas lease sale for northern Cook Inlet Nov. 30.

The Trust Land Office manages about 1 million acres of Alaska Mental Health Trust land on behalf of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. It has more than 100,000 acres under oil and gas lease in the Cook Inlet and Nenana basin regions and more than 2,000 acres under coal lease in the Healy and Sutton areas.

Some 130,000 acres will be offered Nov. 30 in 25 tracts. The sale includes lease tracts that have been offered but not leased in previous Trust Land Office lease sales.

“The purpose of the sale will be to secure binding commitments to explore unencumbered Trust oil and gas estate in the Cook Inlet area, and to provide for certain terms and conditions for development in the event that economically viable oil and/or gas reserves are discovered,” the Trust Land Office said in its sale notice.

Sale information is available online at www.mhtrustland.org.

The bid opening will be at 9 a.m. Nov. 30 in the conference room of the Trust Land Office at 718 L St., Ste. 202, Anchorage. Preliminary sale results, including a list of the apparent high bidders, will be available Dec. 7.

—Kristen Nelson