Cook Inlet areawide sale April 21

The state’s first Cook Inlet areawide oil and gas lease sale will be held April 21 in Anchorage. The state issued a sale announcement Jan. 20 covering an area of approximately 4.2 million acres within the Kenai Peninsula Borough, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the Municipality of Anchorage.

There are 815 tracts in the sale area, ranging in gross area from 640 acres to 23,040 acres. The exact amount of net leaseable acreage in each tract will be determined only after bids are received, at which time the division will complete a comprehensive evaluation of lands within the tracts receiving bids.

The division has prepared a tract map of the sale area and only lands within the sale area not covered by existing leases as of Dec. 1, 1998, will be considered available for leasing in Cook Inlet areawide 1999. Lands released from leased status after that date would be offered in Cook Inlet areawide 2000, scheduled for August 2000.

The minimum cash bonus is $5 per acre; all leases have a fixed royalty rate of 12.5 percent; all leases will have a primary term of 7 years. Annual rental will be $1 an acre for the first year; $1.50 an acre for the second year; $2 an acre for the third year; $2.50 an acre for the fourth year; and $3 per acre for the fifth and following years.

Bids will be opened beginning at 8:30 a.m. on April 21 in the Wilda Marston Theater in the Loussac Public Library in Anchorage. Bids will be received from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 19 in the division’s new offices in suite 800 of the Bank of America Building at 550 W. 7th Ave. in Anchorage. Preliminary sale results, including a list of apparent high bidders, will be available in the director’s suite at the division’s new offices at 3:30 p.m. on April 21.

The state’s final finding is available at the Division of Oil and Gas’s web page at http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/oil. A free printed version of the tract map for Cook Inlet areawide 1999 is available: phone 907 269-8805; e-mail at [email protected]. A CD-ROM version of the map is also available for $50 plus $3.50 postage: phone 907 269-8833; e-mail [email protected].