The Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced today that its next offshore oil and gas lease sale, Beaufort Sea Sale 170, will be held in Anchorage, Alaska on August 5, 1998. The area being offered for lease includes about 241 whole and partial blocks covering approximately one million acres. Located off Alaska’s central Arctic coast, Sale 170 concentrates on areas of existing oil and gas activity and leases, extending between near the Colville River east toward the Canning River.

The sale area is adjacent to that offered by the State of Alaska in its November 1997 offshore sale and last week’s onshore sale. Sale 170 will not include blocks off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The MMS has attached requirements similar to those adopted by the State of Alaska to protect Nuiqsut’s bowhead whale subsistence harvest in the Beaufort Sea. For leases within 10 miles of Cross Island, industry operators must obtain certain agreements with the North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission before any permanent facilities could be placed.

Seventy-eight blocks being offered in Sale 170 are located within three to six miles beyond the State of Alaska’s coastal boundary, known as the "8(g) zone". The State will receive 27% of revenues generated from Sale 170 and any resulting development on those blocks. In 1997, Alaska received more than $17 million in 8(g) funds from federal OCS leases, and has received over $463 million since 1986. The State has also benefitted through the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and the National Historic Preservation Fund (NHPF), both funded by OCS revenues.. The cumulative total received for projects in the State from these two funds is near $74 million.

Sale 170 will be the third federal sale in the last 3 years offshore Alaska, and is the 7th in the Beaufort Sea since 1979.

Copies of the Final Notice of Sale and other documents related to proposed Sale 170 may be obtained by writing to the Alaska OCS Region, Minerals Management Service, Suite 308, 949 E 36th Avenue, Anchorage, Alaska, 99508-4302, by telephone at (907) 271-6691 or 1-800-764-2627, or by sending an e-mail message to akwebmaster@mms.gov. 

MMS is the federal agency that manages and regulates the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf, and collects and disburses revenues from offshore federal mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on federal and Indian lands.

Last updated 7/1/98