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Date set for spring areawide lease sales
KRISTEN NELSON Petroleum News
The state has set May 4 as the date for bid opening in its Alaska Peninsula areawide 2016 and Cook Inlet areawide 2016W oil and gas lease sales.
The Alaska Division of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, said in a March 18 statement that in-person bid submission for the sales would be May 2 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at suite 800 of the Atwood Building, 550 West 7th Avenue, Anchorage, with the public bid opening beginning at 9 a.m. May 4 in suite 108 of the Atwood Building.
The state has not received bids for recent Alaska Peninsula areawide lease sales, an area of some 4 million gross onshore acres and 1.75 million offshore acres. The Alaska Peninsula sale includes 1,047 tracts from 640 to 5,760 acres on the north side of the Alaska Peninsula from the Nushagak Peninsula in the north and then south and west to the vicinity of Cold Bay.
Alaska Peninsula tracts have a $5 per acre minimum bid, carry a 12.5 percent royalty and have a 10-year term. The annual rental rates are $1 per acre in the first year, and increase by 50 cents per acre to $3 in the fifth year.
Cook Inlet Cook Inlet bid activity has varied widely in recent years. That sale area covers some 4.2 million gross acres, 815 tracts ranging from 640 to 5,760 acres, in the Municipality of Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna and Kenai boroughs. The acreage is in the Matanuska and Susitna river valleys generally south and west of Houston and Wasilla, the Anchorage bowl and the western shore of Cook Inlet from Beluga River to Harriet Point, and includes tide and submerged lands in upper Cook Inlet from Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm south to Anchor Point and Tuxedni Bay.
The minimum per-acre bid for Cook Inlet tracts is $10 and tracts carry a 10-year primary term and a 12.5 percent royalty. Rental is $10 per acre in years 1 through 7, increasing to $250 per acre in years 8 through 10, except that beginning in the year after the year in which sustained production begins, or the state determines that the lessee has exercised reasonable diligence in exploring and developing the list, the state may, at its sole discretion, set the annual rental at $10 per acre or fraction of an acre. In evaluating a request for decreased rental the state will consider funds expended by the lessee to explore and develop the lease and the types of work completed by or on behalf of the lessee on the lease.
Complete details on the sales are on the division’s website at:
http://dog.dnr.alaska.gov/Leasing/SaleDocuments.htm.
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