Area-wide lease sales for the North Slope and Cook Inlet brought an estimated $8 million to the State of Alaska, an increase over last year but not the major bump that new Inlet royalty terms were supposed to stimulate.
The state’s North Slope areawide oil and gas lease sale saw a significant uptick in activity and revenue compared to last year, with more than $5 million in winning bids on seventy tracts.
Australian oil company Santos is merging with Papua New Guinea-based Oil Search, which has been developing the Pikka project on the North Slope.
The revised development plan ultimately allows Oil Search to increase its overall production at a reduced cost.
Fall is well underway, and with it signs that Alaska’s oil and gas industry is busy preparing for the 2019-2020 winter drilling season.
Both ConocoPhillips and Oil Search are optimistic about the potential of the Nanushuk Formation on the North Slope following the combined drilling of nine delineation wells over the winter in the Greater Willow and Pikka-Horseshoe units.
Oil Search has received the United States Army Corps of Engineers permit and Record of Decision for the Pikka Development Project on the North Slope, in accordance with Section 404 of the US Clean Water Act.
Alaska’s oil potential is global in scale, and international organizations engaged in exploration or development (or both) have been seizing opportunities they see in the Last Frontier.