The state received 93 bids for 80 tracts at its recent areawide North Slope oil and gas lease sale. The state received $8.5 million in apparent high bids, compared with $6.5 million in the areawide sale last year, according to Petroleum News.

Armstrong Oil & Gas Inc. of Denver, bidding as 70 & 148 LLC, dominated the sale, with the apparent high bid on 68 tracts. Its apparent winning bids totaled $7.8 million. Armstrong took substantial acreage on the west and southwest side of the North Slope, extending a position the company established last year to the west and south of the Kuparuk River unit. Ed Kerr, Armstrong's vice president for land and business development, said the company's state oil and gas lease acreage now totals some 475,000 acres.

AVCG LLC took five leases for $411,840, going after tracts on the west side near Nuiqsut where the company has a considerable acreage position and one tract closer to Kuparuk. Savant Alaska spent $170,029 to take three tracts on the east side, southeast of Point Thomson on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge border. Daniel K. Donkel, 25 percent, and Samuel H. Cade, 75 percent, took two leases for $76,800. On his own, Donkel took one lease for $25,600. James A. White took one lease for $60,595.

Conoco Phillips was the only major oil company to bid but it was outbid for the tracts it sought.

Kevin Banks, head of the state Division of Oil and Gas, was encouraged by Armstrong's bidding.

"Folks like Ed Kerr and his company ... historically they're more than just somebody picking up a piece of ground," he said. "Obviously, the exploration work they did at Oooguruk and Nikaitchuq led to producing oil fields."