There were very modest results in state and federal offshore lease sales held Wednesday, June 21. Only one company submitted bids for tracts, Hilcorp Alaska LLC. Hilcorp operates producing oil and gas fields in upper Cook Inlet. The company submitted bids on 14 federal and six state tracts and was the only bidder.

What was significant is that this signaled a big shift for Hilcorp away from its strategy of purchasing and then renewing, through invested, aged producing fields toward an initiative toward new exploration in Cook Inlet’s offshore, a first for that company.

Leases were auctioned in the federal OCS Sale 244 for Lower Cook Inlet and the state’s upper Cook Inlet areawide sale. Bids on state acreage were opened by Alaska officials at 9 a.m. and on federal acreage by U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management officials at 10 a.m. Lease Sale 244 is the first OCS sale held in Alaska waters since a federal offshore sale in the Chukchi Sea in 2008.

In the state sale, Hilcorp bid $171,540 for six tracts and $3,034,815 for 14 federal tracts. The federal leases were in an area of Cook Inlet just south of the state acreage.

Bids for the state acreage ranged from $81,920 in the lowest offer to $202,822 in the highest bid. Hilcorp was more aggressive on the federal acreage, offering $474,582 for the highest bid.

Hilcorp’s largest bids, all in the $450,000 range were for a cluster of offshore leases in the middle of the lower Inlet area several miles west of Homer, Alaska. Other leases sold for lower prices were at scattered locations in the Inlet. Leases in the state sales were also scattered across the area, with a cluster of three leases in the middle of the Inlet near Kalgin Island.

The state also offered tracts for lease on the Alaska Peninsula in southwest Alaska, an area adjacent to Bristol Bay, a region considered prospective for oil and gas. There were no bids for leases there in Wednesday’s sale, however.