The prospect of actually holding a federal oil and gas lease sale on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s Coastal Plain may produce bigger headlines. But the US Bureau of Land Management’s scheduled Dec. 11 offering of 350 tracts totaling approximately 3.98 million acres within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska isn’t exactly something to sneeze at.
“This is one of several actions we are taking to further expand energy development in Alaska,” BLM Alaska State Director Chad Padgett said. “We are working on a new Integrated Activity Plan for the NPR-A. With advancements in drilling technology, it was prudent to develop a new plan that provides for greater economic development of our resources while still providing protections for important resources, such as subsistence uses.”
Federal oil and gas lease sales within the NPR-A are competitive. A detailed statement of sale, including a description of the tracts offered for lease, the lease terms, conditions and special stipulations, and how and where to submit the sealed bids, is available at www.blm.gov/alaska/lease-sales.
This will be the 15th oil and gas lease sale in the NPR-A since 1999. There currently are 215 leases covering more than 1.5 million acres in the NPR-A. Bids received for the 14 previous sales generated more than $283 million, half of which was paid to the State of Alaska, BLM’s Alaska State Office noted.
It said that the 350 tracts which are being offered were designated as available for development in the 2013 NPR-A Integrated Activity Plan/Environmental Impact Statement Record of Decision. The US Department of the Interior agency sought public input and nominations on all available tracts within the NPR-A in June and July 2019. It received comments and nominations on tracts available and unavailable for leasing.
BLM’s Alaska State Office must receive sealed bids by 4 p.m. ASKT on Dec. 9. They will be opened at 10 a.m. 2 days later. The process will be live-streamed at blm.gov/live.
This hardly will be the biggest federal auction of leases within the reserve. That took place in 2017, when 900 tracts totaling nearly 10.3 million acres were offered. Bids totaling $1,159,357 came in for seven tracts totaling 79,998 acres.
The following year, 255 tracts totaling nearly 2.9 million acres received more than $1.5 million in bids for 16 tracts totaling 174,044 acres.
The state’s oil and gas division, which is part of its Department of Natural Resources, held a fall lease sale of tracts near Prudhoe Bay on Nov. 15. Each block had a primary term of 8 years, a fixed royalty rate of 16.667%, and a minimum work commitment. The minimum accepted bid was $25/acre.
Nick Snow
NICK SNOW covered oil and gas in Washington for more than 30 years. He worked in several capacities for The Oil Daily and was founding editor of Petroleum Finance Week before joining OGJ as its Washington correspondent in September 2005 and becoming its full-time Washington editor in October 2007. He retired from OGJ in January 2020.
