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NPR-A Northwest sale scheduled for June 2 BLM offers 506 tracts, 484 in northwest, 22 with both northwest, northeast acreage and different stipulations Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
Oil and gas lease sales held in the northeast planning area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in 1999 and 2002 garnered some $163 million. Companies have drilled exploration wells, with discoveries announced by ConocoPhillips Alaska, planning for the first NPR-A development under way and a final environmental impact statement due out this summer.
The Bureau of Land Management will know soon how much interest industry has in the area of NPR-A farther to the west.
Bids will be opened for a 5.8 million acre northwest NPR-A lease sale at the Wilda Marston Theatre in the Loussac Public Library in Anchorage, Alaska, at 8 a.m. June 2. (See map on page 14.)
There are 484 tracts in the northwest planning area sale, the first time this area has been offered in some 15 years, and a small number of tracts along the edge of the eastern and western planning area.
These 22 tracts are “being offered so that we don’t leave a hole in the mineral estate,” BLM’s Alaska state director, Henri Bisson, told Petroleum News April 28. The northeast area tracts straddle the Ikpikpuk River, which forms the boundary between the two planning areas.
“We’re actually offering the northeast portions using the existing northeast lease stips and the northwest portions using the new stipulations that came out in the northwest record of decision in January,” Bisson said.
The east bank of the Ikpikpuk River is the boundary, so portions of the 22 tracts to the east of that will be under northeast stipulations and portions of the 22 tracts to the west will be under northwest stipulations. Draft amendments due out soon The agency is working on amendments to the northeast plan amendments/environment impact statement, Bisson said, with a draft of those amendments expected to be out for public comment in about a month.
“We think that in both planning areas we are doing the responsible thing. We’re trying to provide for leasing and hopefully exploration and even more hopefully some development,” he said. “And when you look at the price currently of gasoline in this country, the price of a barrel of oil, anything we can help to contribute to the national energy scene is going to reduce the cost for everybody in terms of reducing how much has to be imported at those high prices.”
Once the draft amendments are released there will be a public comment period, “so we’re months and months away from concluding it, but it will be concluded by the end of the year,” he said, with final amendments expected to be issued this fall, and a record of decision in December.
BLM received coastal zone consistency approval for the northwest lease sale from the state of Alaska last week, Bisson said.
He noted that there has been a complaint filed in federal court against the lease sale, and said he does not know what impact the suit may have on the sale.
“We’ve done our homework, we’ve provided the appropriate levels of protection, we’ve provided for the possibility that the area can actually be leased by holding this lease sale. And so we’re ready to move ahead,” Bisson said. No bids in late 1980s This area of NPR-A was last offered for sale in about 1988, and there were no bids received.
“We believe that there will be interest in this lease sale by industry,” Bisson said.
Technology has improved since the late 1980s, he said, the “seismic data they have is better, they know more about the reservoirs and the geology of the area.”
The western part of NPR-A will involve “huge costs,” he said, “in terms of any potential development, but I think there’s some optimism with this lease sale.”
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