ConocoPhillips, Savant release leases

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

ConocoPhillips Alaska surrendered 22 state oil and gas leases on the eastern side of the North Slope in December, according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas monthly lease administration report.

Twenty of the leases are in a block the company held south/southwest of Badami, south of and adjacent to leases held by Caelus Alaska. The remaining two are south of the main block of relinquished leases.

Savant Alaska, a subsidiary of Glacier Oil and Gas, surrendered a single east side North Slope lease bordering the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Point Thomson unit.

In Cook Inlet, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court granted a motion to terminate a lease held by Aurora Gas northeast of Kasilof on the Kenai Peninsula. Five Aurora Gas leases at Nicolai Creek on the west side of Cook Inlet were transferred to Aurora Exploration, which has taken over the Nicolai Creek unit.

One lease northeast of Nikolaevsk on the Kenai Peninsula, held by Woodstone Resources, was terminated for failure to pay rent.

The division also issued six Cook Inlet leases which Hilcorp Alaska won in the state’s 2017 Cook Inlet areawide lease sale, two west side onshore leases between Pretty Creek and the Beluga River field; three offshore leases at Kalgin Island; and one shoreline Kenai Peninsula lease between Ninilchik and Cosmopolitan.

The division also approved numerous secondary override transfers of varying percentages, with six overriding royalty interests transferred from Proak LLC to Royal Delaware Prospect JV; 19 from Alaska ORRI LLC to Kuukpik Corp.; and six from Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. to Kuukpik Corp.

—KRISTEN NELSON