Dates changed for areawide North Slope, Beaufort Sea lease sales

Opening will be Oct. 24, bids due Oct. 22; bids for one group of leases can be withdrawn if potential lessees cannot negotiate surface use agreements with Kuukpik Corp.

Kristen Nelson

PNA Editor-in-Chief

The date of the state’s North Slope and Beaufort Sea areawide sales has been changed from Oct. 23 (Wednesday) to Oct. 24 (Thursday). The Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, said bid acceptance has been changed to Oct. 22 (Tuesday). The division said all references to Oct. 21 in bidders instructions should now be read as Oct. 22; all references to Oct. 23 should now be read as Oct. 24 and all references to Oct. 24 should now be read as Oct. 25.

Locations and times in instructions to bidders and previous sale announcements remain the same. The sale is at the Wilda Marston Theater in the Loussac Public Library in Anchorage starting at 8:30 a.m.

It a supplemental notice issued Sept. 24 the division also said the tracts 917, 918, 921, 924 and 927 will remain in the North Slope areawide sale. The state and Arctic Slope Regional Corp. jointly own all of the subsurface interests in the tracts and have agreed to joint, undivided ownership of leasable subsurface of certain lands near the village of Nuiqsut.

These five tracts are also subject to a 1997 consent agreement between ASRC and the Kuukpik Corp. (Nuiqsut village). In the 1997 agreement Kuukpik consented to oil and gas exploration and developments activities on these tracts. But, the division said, “potential lessees are advised that they will be required to enter into a surface use agreement with Kuukpik before undertaking exploration and development activities with respect to these tracts.”

The division said that if potential lessees do not negotiate surface use agreements with Kuukpik before the division awards leases under the North Slope areawide 2002 lease sale, the potential lessee may withdraw its bid, and under those circumstances the division will refund the bid deposit to the potential lessee.

The division said in its July sale announcement that it might delete tracts 917, 918, 921, 924 and 927 from the sale because the ASRC-Kuukpik agreement requires any unleased ASRC acreage in these tracts be made subject to the same terms and conditions as those contained in the 1997 ARCO-Kuukpik surface use agreement. That agreement, the division said, has not been made public and the division is offering these tracts contingent upon any apparent high bidder having access to the relevant parts of the surface use agreement following the sale.

All tracts have a minimum cash bonus of $10 per acre and a term of seven years. Royalty rates vary.