December start for online bidding for state’s northern lease sales

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Online bidding for the state’s northern oil and gas lease sale areas - Beaufort Sea, North Slope and North Slope Foothills - opens on Dec. 14, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas said in a Nov. 20 sale notice.

These are the sales that have typically been held in the fall.

Division Director Tom Stokes told PN in October that the January date allow “for more time to improve data availability and GIS-shapefiles for bidders who may be new to Alaska.”

In recent years the division and the Bureau of Land Management have coordinated sale dates, with the state opening bids in the morning and BLM in the afternoon. BLM has not yet set a date for its National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska sale. Lesli-Ellis Wouters, communications director for BLM Alaska, told PN in October that she anticipates a record of decision on the next NPR-A sale by the end of the year.

The first online state areawide sale was last spring for the Cook Inlet and Alaska Peninsula sales.

The division contracted with EnergyNet.com LLC to provide online bidding.

Bidder registration and bid submission will be on the EnergyNet Government Listings site at www.energynet.com.

The State of Oklahoma and the federal Bureau of Land Management currently have upcoming oil and gas lease sales posted on the site.

The first day to submit bids for the Alaska sales will be Dec. 14; the deadline for bid submission is Jan. 7 at 4 p.m.

Results of bidding will be available to the public at the division’s website Jan. 13 at 9 a.m.

The sale notice and documents are available online at https://dog.dnr.alaska.gov/Services/BIFAndLeaseSale under current lease sales.

- KRISTEN NELSON