The Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas (DO&G), will offer all available state acreage in the Cook Inlet and Alaska Peninsula oil and gas lease sale areas, tentatively scheduled for Spring 2025. DO&G is requesting substantial new information concerning Cook Inlet and the Alaska Peninsula that has become available over the past year.
Based on the information received, DO&G will either issue a supplement to the findings or issue a decision of no substantial new information for the lease sale.
The most recent Cook Inlet Areawide final best interest finding was issued in 2018. A supplement was issued for the Cook Inlet Areawide finding in 2019. The most recent Alaska Peninsula Areawide final best interest finding was issued in 2023, and no supplement has been issued.
The findings are located at: http://dog.dnr.alaska.gov/Services/BIFAndLeaseSale
What Are the Alaska Oil and Gas Areawide Lease Sale Program and the Best Interest Finding?
Alaska holds annual competitive oil and gas lease sales in five defined geographic areas, called “areawide lease sales.” Before DO&G may hold an areawide lease sale in any of the five geographic areas, Alaska law requires a written finding that it is in the state’s best interests to have a lease sale. A best interest finding is generally valid for 10 years.
The finding describes facts and relevant laws pertaining to the proposed lease sale area and discusses the potential effects of oil and gas exploration, development, production, and transportation. It also contains mitigation measures that lessees must follow.
Mitigation measures are designed to reduce or prevent potential negative effects and are included in leases. Mitigation measures may be modified through supplements.
What Areas Are Included in the Oil and Gas Lease Sales?
The Cook Inlet Areawide lease sale area encompasses about 1.5 million acres onshore and 1.8 million acres offshore, divided into 833 tracts currently ranging in size from 640 to 5,760 acres. These tracts are located within the Matanuska-Susitna, Anchorage, and Kenai Peninsula Boroughs and consist of state-owned uplands located in the Matanuska and Susitna river valleys generally south and west of Houston and Wasilla, the Anchorage bowl, and the western shore of Cook Inlet from Beluga River to Harriet Point.
The lease sale area also includes the tide and submerged lands in upper Cook Inlet from Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm south to Anchor Point and Tuxedni Bay.
The area is bounded on the east by the Chugach and Kenai mountains and on the west by the Aleutian Range. With the inclusion of the SW Cook Inlet area, the Cook Inlet Areawide boundary was expanded by an additional 169,000 acres on and around the Iniskin Peninsula, located about 120 miles south of Tyonek.
The land estate on these tracts may be owned by the state, a municipality, or a private entity. Only those tracts in which the mineral estate is free and unencumbered are included in any issued lease.
After issuing the 10-year best interest finding, DO&G may––as a general matter––conduct areawide lease sales in that area for up to 10 years without having to issue a new best interest finding for each lease sale provided DO&G annually solicits new information.
Based on the information received, DO&G determines whether the information is substantial and new and justifies supplementing the most recent areawide best interest finding.
DO&G can either issue a decision stating that no substantial new information exists or a decision to supplement the finding at least 90 days before the lease sale. Following this process, DO&G may proceed with a lease sale for that area in that year.
What Is “Substantial New” Information?
DO&G generally considers “substantial new” information to be published research, studies, or data directly relevant to the matters listed in AS 38.05.035(g) that have become publicly available over the last year.
What Substantial New Information Is DO&G Requesting?
DO&G requests substantial new information on any of the following matters listed in AS 38.05.035(g) for the Alaska Peninsula or Cook Inlet areawide lease sale areas, including:
- Property descriptions and locations.
- Petroleum potential of the sale area, in general terms.
- Fish and wildlife species and their habitats in the area.
- Current and projected uses in the area, including uses and value of fish and wildlife.
- Governmental powers to regulate the exploration, development, production, and transportation of oil and gas or of gas only.
- Reasonably foreseeable cumulative effects of exploration, development, production, and transportation for oil and gas or for gas only on the sale area, including effects on subsistence uses, fish and wildlife habitat and populations and their uses, and historic and cultural resources. (DO&G generally considers “lease stipulations and mitigation measures” as conditions or limitations imposed on the lessee to ensure a resource is disposed of in a manner that mitigates the lease stipulations and mitigation measures, including any measures to prevent and mitigate releases of oil and hazardous substances, to be included in the leases, and a discussion of the protections offered by these measures.
- Method or methods most likely to be used to transport oil or gas from the lease sale area, and the advantages, disadvantages, and relative risks of each.
- Reasonably foreseeable fiscal effects of the lease sale and the subsequent activity on the state and affected municipalities and communities, including the explicit and implicit subsidies associated with the lease sale, if any.
- Reasonably foreseeable effects of exploration, development, production, and transportation involving oil and gas or gas only on municipalities and communities within or adjacent to the lease sale area.
- Bidding method or methods adopted by the commissioner under AS 38.05.180.
