Mental Health Trust sale draws inlet bids

The Mental Health Trust Land Office received three bids on two tracts in its fifth annual oil and gas lease sale. Bids were opened Nov. 30 in Anchorage.

Mike Franger, the Trust Office’s senior resource manager, said 25 tracts were offered, a total of a little over 128,000 acres. The acreage offered is in and around the northern Cook Inlet basin, and includes lease tracts offered but not leased in previous Trust lease sales.

Aurora Gas was apparent high bidder on tract 18, some 3,350 acres on the west side of Cook Inlet southwest of Tyonek, bidding $16.50 per acre for a total bid of $55,289.36. Samuel H. Cade also bid on that tract, with a per-acre bid of $12.33 and a total bid of $41,316.23.

Cade was the only bidder on tract 32, some 1,746 acres in the vicinity of Houston, bidding $10.22 per acre, a total bid of $17,844.73.

Revenue from the sale is used to help the mental health program in the Alaska.

Franger told Petroleum News after the sale that, “the Trust has 163,413 acres leased for oil and gas exploration and development.”

“The two tracts bid on today total 5,098 acres,” he said.

—Kristen Nelson