Oil and gas bids net $10 million for state

The state of Alaska earned just shy of $10 million Wednesday as oil and gas producers bid on leases in the North Slope.

Bidders offered $9.5 million for 131 tracts covering 186,400 acres of state-owned land on the North Slope, the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas reported. The state received another $394,000 from six bids offered by ConocoPhillips for federal land in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

The state had offered land in the North Slope foothills and leases in state waters of the Beaufort Sea, but no companies pursued those offerings.

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