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THE INDEPENDENTS 2003: Independents dominate lease sales Of $5.8 million state garnered in high bids at North Slope, Beaufort sales, $3.8 million was from Pioneer Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Independents dominated two Alaska oil and gas lease sales held Oct. 29.
Especially one independent.
At the conclusion of the sales, the annual areawide Beaufort Sea and North Slope sales, Alaska Division of Oil and Gas leasing manager Jim Hansen thanked companies, “…for your interest in the leasing program and participating here today — especially Pioneer Natural Resources.”
Of $5.8 million that the state garnered in high bonus bids at the sales, $3.8 million was from Pioneer.
Pioneer took the majority of leases at both sales, with apparent high bids of $1.5 million at the Beaufort sale out of $1,975,833.60, and $2.3 million at the North Slope sale out of $3,833,333.60.
Pioneer took 12 leases out of 20 in the Beaufort Sea sale; the state received 26 bids on 20 tracts, 48,640 acres.
Pioneer took offshore acreage north of Prudhoe Bay south of Reindeer Island and north of Prudhoe Bay south of Northstar, and appeared to be acquiring acreage formerly held by BP, which sold or dropped its exploration acreage earlier this year.
The other big bidder in the Beaufort Sea sale is also an independent, AVCG, which took six leases, spending $241,920. Armstrong and Ultrastar, also independents, each took one track in the Beaufort Sale. A partnership of ConocoPhillips Alaska, BP and ExxonMobil bid on one tract in the Beaufort Sea sale, but lost out to Pioneer.
Pioneer comes onshore The big surprise came at the onshore sale, when Pioneer picked up a huge block of leases south of Prudhoe Bay and west of the trans-Alaska pipeline. The state received 79 bids on 75 tracts in the North Slope sale, some 220,800 acres, and Pioneer took 41 tracts.
Independent Anadarko Petroleum took 16 tracts, paying almost $857,000. AVCG took nine onshore tracts, paying just over $325,000. ConocoPhillips and Keith Forsgren each took four tracts, and Armstrong took a single tract.
Chris Cheatwood, Pioneer’s executive vice president for worldwide exploration, told Petroleum News after the sale that the company bid on some 167,000 acres, and expects to come away from the sales with about 155,000 acres. It was beat out of one tract on which it bid, by Ultrastar, and totals are adjusted when the state does title work and determines the exact acreage for each tract.
Cheatwood said that in addition to the onshore acreage, the company “picked up some things just north of Prudhoe as well in the offshore.”
The onshore block Pioneer acquired is between Prudhoe and Kuparuk, just south of established field infrastructure. Bill Van Dyke, petroleum manager with the Division of Oil and Gas, said he would guess that the large block Pioneer acquired is an oil play, it’s a long ways north of the gas areas in the foothills, he said, and “it’s on trend with Tarn and Meltwater.”
Diane Kerr, Anadarko’s Alaska/Canada frontier exploration manager, said the company was basically completing its acreage block, and John Bridges, the company’s land supervisor, said Anadarko is looking for a partner or partners for the acreage, and would like to drill there by 2005.
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