Lack of bids sign of the times in oil industry.

• Author: Pilkington, Steve
• Position: OIL & GAS

The state's regular Alaska Peninsula and North Slope Foothills area-wide oil and gas lease sales drew a single bid recently, reflecting industry reluctance to lease new land before resolving questions about land ownership and federal offshore leasing, division director Kevin Banks said.

In the Alaska Peninsula area-wide sale, the state offered 1,047 tracts in an area encompassing onshore and offshore acreage from the Nushagak Peninsula on the north side of the Peninsula to just north of Cold Bay. Preliminary results show Hewitt Mineral Corp., an Oklahoma-based independent that successfully bid on four onshore tracts near Port Moller in the first area-wide sale held in October 2005, bid $38,995 for a lease on an adjacent 5,760-acre tract.

Banks said industry interest in the Alaska Peninsula area is tied to the prospects for lease sales on federal offshore acreage in the North Aleutian Basin. The Minerals Management Service estimates the basin holds 750 million barrels of oil and 8.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and has included the area in its next five-year...