Alaska Native lands provide increased revenue: exploration efforts to boost natural resource revenues continue.

• Author: Liles, Patricia
• Position: ALASKA NATIVE BUSINESS NEWS

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For Alaska Natives, who hold a long tradition of living off the provisions of their lands, 2008 proved to be an active and profitable year for natural resource exploration and production.

Resource development revenue shared among Alaska Native regional corporations increased substantially in 2008--in some cases almost doubling from the prior year's contributions. That's due largely to increased revenues generated by the Alpine oil field on the North Slope, which generates royalties for Arctic Slope Regional Corp., and the Red Dog zinc and lead mine in northwestern Alaska, which contributes a share of net profits or losses to NANA Regional Corp. Inc.

"The high price of zinc resulted in extraordinary royalty payments, which not only benefited NANA but all other Native corporations across the state," said Helvi Sandvik, president and CEO of NANA Development Corp., the operating arm of the regional corporation.

A BUNDLE OF REVENUES

In 2008, NANA distributed $121.7 million in resource revenues to other regional corporations, up from $33.6 million in 2007 and $18.2 million in 2006, according to the corporation's annual report.

Zinc market prices ranged between 75 cents and $1.30 in 2008, between $1.30 and $1.70 in 2007 and between 65 cents and $1.70 in 2006. In recent weeks, zinc has traded in the 70 cent range.

NANA's share of net resource revenue income in 2008 was $55.1 million in 2008, slightly down from 2007, but substantially higher than the $17 million reported in 2006.

"NANA did well with natural resource income in 2008, but so did other Native corporations. We were able to make a significant contribution to other corporations, which spreads to every community in the state," Sandvik said.

That's because Alaska Native corporations share with other Alaska Native regional and village corporations the majority--70 percent--of monies paid as royalties or shares of subsurface resource extraction, such as oil production or gold mining. That's according to the 7(i) and 7(j) natural resource revenue sharing provisions of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Only the 13th Regional Corp. does not share resource revenue with other ANCs, as the for-profit corporation created for Alaska Natives living outside of the state did not receive land rights under ANCSA.

SHARING WEALTH

In 2008, Calista Corp. received $23.8 million in shared resource revenues, compared to $13.4 million the prior year. Bristol Bay Native Corp. received...