Denver group picks up Alaska oil leases

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Oct 22 (Reuters) - A pair of Alaska oil and gas lease sales for exploration rights to state land and waters on the North Slope and in the Beaufort Sea reaped $9.14 million in high bids on Wednesday ,

About $4.9 million of the winning bids submitted for onshore North Slope tracts came from a Denver-based group, called 70&148 LLC, according to preliminary results.

Of the $2.6 million in high bids in the Beaufort sale, $1.8 million came from 70&148 LLC.

State officials said they knew little about 70&148 LLC, other than the numbers refer to the latitude and longitude of the Prudhoe Bay field.

In all, about 300,000 acres of state land and waters was leased, according to preliminary figures.

The highest bids, for areas both onshore and offshore, were for tracts around the Colville River Delta, near the Alpine field operated by ConocoPhillips (COP.N) and the Ooguruk field operated by Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD.N).

Pioneer picked up some acreage adjacent to Ooguruk, according to the results.

Other companies and groups submitting successful bids were ConocoPhillips; FEX LP, a unit of Canada-based Talisman Energy (TLM.N), which acquired tracts near some existing leases; AVCG LLC, an independent that has been active on the North Slope and in the Cook Inlet basin; Savant Alaska LLC, a unit of Denver-based Savant Resources; and several individual investors.

ConocoPhillips, BP (BP.L) , Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and Chevron (CVX.N), bidding in partnership, acquired rights to a single offshore tract near Prudhoe Bay that is expected to be folded into the Greater Prudhoe Bay unit.