Alaska Oil & Gas Lease Sales

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources offers all available acres in its Areawide lease sales. Areawide leasing allows regularly scheduled competitive sales within specific oil and gas basins without a nomination process. Offering oil and gas leases in each sale area annually allows Alaska to have a stable, predictable leasing program. In Areawide leasing, the lease legal description and acreage are determined after a bid is received on a lease sale tract.

The Alaska DNR provides the lease sale tract location and estimated lease acres prior to sale. The lease award includes the final legal description and acreage for the lease. Additionally, The Alaska DNR offers data to help you interpret and evaluate Alaska's resources as you consider participating in lease sales or evaluate leads, prospects, or discoveries.

Alaska Pipeline Services

The State Pipeline Coordinator’s Section (SPCS) of the Division of Oil and Gas, under the direction of the State Pipeline Coordinator, provides regulatory oversight of common- and contract-carrier transportation pipelines, including the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), authorized under Alaska Statute 38.35 the Right-of-Way Leasing Act.

To facilitate a comprehensive oversight program, the SPCS works closely with other divisions within the Department of Natural Resources and with dedicated liaisons from the Department of Fish and Game, the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, and the Department of Public Safety.

The State Pipeline Coordinator serves as the co-executive director of a consortium of state and federal agencies known as the Joint Pipeline Office (JPO). The JPO, established in 1990, provides a coordinated and consistent multi-agency approach for regulatory oversight of TAPS, which transports petroleum and natural gas products across state and federal lands and waters.

Exploration Licensing Program

The State of Alaska offers oil and gas exploration licenses through its exploration licensing program. The intent of the oil and gas exploration licensing program (AS 38.05.131-134) is to encourage exploration in areas far from existing infrastructure, with unknown hydrocarbon potential, and where there is a higher investment risk to the operator. Licensees are required to provide any data collected under an exploration license to the state (11 AAC 82.981). The exploration licensing program does not apply to certain lands (already subject to areawide lease sales) in the North Slope and Cook Inlet regions as specified by AS 38.05.131(b). The Leasing Team of the Division of Oil and Gas administers the exploration licensing program.

Exploration licensing supplements the state's oil and gas leasing program and encourages oil and gas exploration outside of the known oil and gas provinces. Several large sedimentary basins exist within Interior Alaska, some of which are virtually unexplored. The highly variable structural geology of these basins offers the potential for structural traps in overthrust belts and strike slip systems. Various types of clastic and carbonate stratigraphic traps may also be present. Exploration licensing allows companies to explore these frontier basins with minimal costs added by the state. An area selected for exploration licensing must be between 10,000 and 500,000 acres. View current exploration license projects and the exploration licensing process by clicking on the links below.

 

Geothermal Program

The Division of Oil and Gas (Division) administers the geothermal exploration and development program for the State of Alaska. Geothermal resource exploration and development is authorized under AS 38.05.181 with regulatory guidance outlined at 11 AAC 84.700-950.

The State may dispose of lands with geothermal potential through issuing prospecting permits or leases to explore and develop geothermal resources. Disposal of land for geothermal exploration and development may only occur after lands are designated as proposed geothermal disposal area and a best interest finding is issued authorizing the disposal. Geothermal prospecting permits are valid for two years and may be renewed for one additional year. A geothermal prospecting permittee may convert the permit to a non-competitive geothermal lease. Geothermal leases are issued for a primary term of 10 years and may be renewed for one additional term of five years. Only state-owned, unencumbered lands will be available for lease or permit.