Mental Health Trust to lease 120,000 acres

Some 120,000 acres around the northern Cook Inlet basin will be offered in a Nov. 2 lease sale by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority through its Trust Land Office.

The sale includes lease tracts offered but not leased in previous Trust Land Office sales on the west side of Cook Inlet, in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough area and on the Kenai Peninsula.

Twenty-three tracts are being offered, with a minimum bid of $5 per acre. Bids are due Nov. 1 and will be opened Nov. 2 at 9 a.m. at the Trust Land Office in Anchorage; preliminary results will be available Nov. 10; award notices will be issued to successful bidders Dec. 15.

Through the end of 2004 the agency had some 100,000 acres under oil and gas lease and is receiving royalty from production in the Beluga River unit. Royalty payments are due from the Nicolai Creek unit pending final agreement between the owners of the Cook Inlet Gas Gathering System and Aurora Gas that will allow Aurora to transport and market gas from Nicolai Creek, the agency said in a report issued in August. It said there was no significant activity on leases on the Kenai Peninsula or in Nenana. In the Matanuska-Susitna area the agency said it had received a plan of operations from Forest Oil for re-development of the Middle Lake No. 1 well in the Point McKenzie area, with drilling activities expected to begin this fall.

Details are available on the agency’s Web site: www.mhtrustland.org/.

—Petroleum News