Houston August 13, 2001 Texas is truly a great state. It's the essence of America distilled into one big place expansive (254 counties), varied in culture (Robert Earl Keen to Lisa Loeb) and geography (from the Hill Country to the coast), and with a fiercely independent spirit (remember the Alamo?). Plus you just have to love a state with a county named Deaf Smith, and a city named Cut and Shoot. So don¹t tell a Texan that, as big as his state is, it's only half as big as Alaska. And you¹d probably be wise not to mention that northern state¹s vast oil resources. But those assets are there, and they¹re being harnessed using high-tech tools and resources.
IndigoPool.com, a Schlumberger company, today announced the State of Alaska Division of Oil and Gas has joined the IndigoPool.com marketplace to promote exploration assets from the Beaufort Sea and the North Slope. Details of the assets, including geological cross-sections, well log data from neighboring fields and links to the State of Alaska's oil and gas laws, are currently available on the Web site.
Mark Myers, State of Alaska Director of Oil and Gas, said, "Given Alaska's world-class oil and gas assets and the potential for a North Slope natural gas pipeline, now is the time to get our message to a global industry audience. There are tremendous benefits in using the Internet to promote lease sales, and IndigoPool is the acknowledged leader in online acquisition and divestiture (A&D). With IndigoPool.com our assets are visible to a global audience. But more than that, interested buyers have the information, tools, and technology they need to make decisions with confidence. We believe the benefits will be two-fold: the process is more efficient and we'll see greater competition in the lease sales."
The Beaufort Sea Area-wide oil and gas lease sale includes offshore and onshore assets and covers approximately two million acres of state-owned tide and submerged lands. The sale area has been divided into 573 tracts ranging in gross area from 640 to 5,760 acres lying between the Canadian Border and Point Barrow in north Alaska.
The North Slope Area-wide lease sale encompasses approximately 5.1 million acres, divided into 1225 tracts ranging in size from 640 to 5,760 acres. The tracts are located between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on the East and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) in the West, where recent discoveries have been announced. The southern boundary of the sale area is the Umiat Meridian baseline.
"Although Alaska was one of the last states to join the Union, the northern-most state is the first to take full advantage of the benefits of online A&D," said IndigoPool President Dan Magyar. "As the last frontier and site of some of the largest fields in North America, the Alaska oil and gas industry approaches business with a sense of adventure and an understanding that the rewards of doing things in new ways can yield tremendous benefits. We are pleased to have the State of Alaska join IndigoPool.com."
The Beaufort Sea and North Slope lease sales are surrounded by numerous large known accumulations of oil and gas, some of which have been developed. It is anticipated that many others will be commercialized in the future. The lease sales will be held in Anchorage on October 24, 2001.