Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas denied approval for renewal of a key operating permit for the Prudhoe Bay field on the North Slope in a letter sent June 30 to BP, the field operator.

The division gave field owners BP, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil until Sept. 1 to remedy issues that were raised, according to the letter. The current permit, the Plan of Development for the field, ended June 30 but has been extended to Nov. 1.

The state is seeking information on marketing activities by the companies relating to 26 tcf of gas in the Prudhoe reservoir. Prudhoe is a major producer of oil but also contains large quantities of gas.

“We have just received a response from DNR and are reviewing it. The DNR response finds the 2016 POD incomplete (without the marketing information) and extends the current POD to November,” Dawn Patience, spokeswoman for BP, the Prudhoe field operator, said in a statement.

ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman said her company is reviewing the decision.

Kim Jordan, spokeswoman for ExxonMobil, said her company will defer to BP, the field operator, for comments.

As to what happens after Nov. 1, Diane Hunt, spokeswoman for the Division of Oil and Gas, said, “‘We fully expect the owners will provide the requested information and see no need to speculate otherwise.”

The gas is not now being marketed because there is no way of moving the gas to markets, although a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope and an LNG export project is now planned.

In responses to earlier letters from the state the companies have said that Prudhoe Bay’s gas is now being used in enhanced oil recovery, and would be sold when a gas pipeline is built.

The companies said their specific gas marketing activities are proprietary and an effort by the state gain information raises antitrust concerns because the state is a partner in the Alaska LNG Project now planned and would be selling royalty gas independently of the producers, and competing with them in sales of LNG.

Sources familiar with the issue, who asks not to be identified, said the division’s actions are likely connected with a proposal by the state to develop a state-owned gas project that could move forward if the large consortium-led Alaska LNG Project is delayed.

To that end, state officials acknowledge they are in discussions with the slope gas producers on terms under which the companies’ gas would be sold to a state-led project. The letters from the division seeking information on the companies’ activities is believed to be related to that, the sources said.

Included in the division’s June 30 letter is a request to the companies on specific terms under which they would market the Prudhoe gas. If the information is not forthcoming, the state could initiate a default action under a “duty to produce” provision in the state lease terms, the sources said.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and his Attorney General, Craig Richards, have previously argued that the North Slope producers should be pressed on the duty to produce terms in the leases to make gas available to an independent pipeline project.

Richards recently resigned as AG for personal reasons but remains a key advisor to Walker.