Anchorage Daily News

The federal government received $30.9 million in high bids at an oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska this week. The state is to get half of the receipts.

The Bureau of Land Management offered 450 tracts for lease in the northeast part of NPR-A, which lies just west of the big North Slope oil fields. The agency got bids on 150 parcels covering about 1.6 million acres. Another 3 million acres in the reserve are already leased, BLM said.

The lease sale had been delayed for two years due to a court challenge by a coalition of environmental groups. BLM had wanted to offer for lease potentially oil-rich land north and east of Teshekpuk Lake, one of the largest lakes in Alaska. That lake and its environs also are prime habitat for migrating waterfowl in particular.

BLM ultimately withdrew some challenged acreage from the lease sale.

Conoco Phillips Alaska, Anadarko Petroleum, Petro-Hunt LLC, Petro-Canada and FEX picked up tracts.

Conoco focused on parcels that could extend its exploration around its new Moose's Tooth prospect in eastern NPR-A. The company also bought tracts west of Umiat and elsewhere. Last year the company gave up 300,000 acres of more remote leases in the reserve.

David Brown, Conoco land manager, characterized this week's bids as a response to plans for a North Slope natural gas pipeline rather than a change in the company's Alaska exploration strategy.

Anadarko and Petro-Canada have been drilling for natural gas near Umiat, and they focused on tracts extending northwest from Umiat. By itself, Petro-Canada picked up other leases a few miles to the southwest.

Dallas-based Petro-Hunt snapped up tracts around and east of the Ikpikpuk River.

Herbert Hunt, adviser to Petro-Hunt management, called the bidding a "frontier play" for oil, rather than gas, because an oil pipeline network already exists.

FEX also won tracts also in the Umiat area. FEX is the Alaska subsidiary of Calgary-based Talisman Energy.

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