The results of the sale were modest, but given the lack of major discoveries so far, sky-high costs in the remote area and the high tax rates in the state of Alaska's new oil production tax, that even a handful of companies showed up to bid was encouraging.

Small oil and gas accumulations have been found in the NPR-A, but no discoveries yet that are big enough to justify development.

The discovery that is nearest to commercial development is in the Moose's Tooth area of the northeast part of the reserve, where ConocoPhillips and Anadarko Petroleum have made several small- to medium-sized accumulations, some of which are planned for development with a pipeline extended from the producing Alpine oil field, which is on state and private lands nearby.

A small gas field discovered years ago near Barrow was developed by the federal government. It now supplies gas to the Barrow community, and is owned by the North Slope Borough. A small oil field was also discovered at Umiat, on the southeast border of the NPR-A, during exploration in the 1950s. It was too small to commercially produce, but in recent years independent company Renaissance Umiat LLC has been working on the prospect with an eye toward possible development.

Six companies participated in the BLM's Sept. 24 bidding, most of them firms with established leases and intrerest in the NPR-A. But there was also a company new to Alaska: Petro-Hunt LLC.

Bids submitted were relatively modest, most of them near the BLM's minimum asking price, and most tracts offered received only one bid. While the overall results of the sale were modest, the bidding demonstrated continued interest in the reserve.

Companies submitting bids Sept. 24 included ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., PetroCanada, FEX LP (a subsidiary of Talisman Energy), Petro-Hunt and Renaissance Umiat.

Petro-Hunt dominated the sale, acquiring 57 leases of 150 tracts drawing bids. BLM offered a total of 187 tracts.

The high bid was $642,926, submitted on Lease D008, in the northeast part of the reserve, by Petro-Hunt. ConocoPhillips submitted the highest bid per acre, however, offering $62 per acre. Most companies in the bidding hold existing leases in NPR-A and bid mostly near their existing landholdings.

BLM received $30.96 million in high bids in the sale. The state of Alaska will receive 50 percent of this, or $15.48 million, according to BLM's statistics for the sale. A total of 4.832 million acres were offered, with 1.65 million acres receiving bids.

Industry observers at the sale were surprised that an area identified as having high potential in the northeast part of the reserve actually drew few offers, only 11 bids. Areas in the northeast and northwest part of the NPR-A identified as having low potential drew far more offers, 175 bids.

Two areas that drew a large number of bids were by ConocoPhillips, for a group of leases along the southern edge of the company's existing leases in the Moose's Tooth area, and in the southern part of the reserve, near where Anadarko Petroleum, PetroCanada and BG Group are exploring for gas on private and state lands. Anadarko and PetroCanada made those bids. Observers at the sale were surprised that BG Group did not join Anadarko and PetroCanada in the NPR-A bidding, however.

The three companies are working together on an exploration program on Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and state lands south of the leases acquired Sept. 24 in the reserve.

In contrast, many of the leases acquired by Petro-Hunt and FEX LLC, a subsidiary of Talisman Energy, were in the middle part of the NPR-A, an area not explored well and generally thought to be prone to natural gas.

FEX has been active in previous BLM lease sales and drilled exploration wells in the northern part of the reserve. Several accumulations of oil and gas were discovered which are still being evaluated.