The Alaska Department of Natural Resources will hold its annual North Slope, Beaufort Sea and North Slope Foothills areawide oil and gas lease sales on Wednesday, Nov. 19. Bid opening will begin at 9 a.m. local time at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage. The total lease area encompasses 14 million acres. Bidding methods, minimum bids and lease terms remain the same as northern Alaska areawide lease sales held from 2011 to 2013 (see Daily GPI, Nov. 7, 2013). The North Slope and Beaufort Sea sale areas continue to include terms and conditions to incentivize exploration of tracts adjacent to federal lands, which include the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. “The results from the past three sales show that investors have continued interest in obtaining new state oil and gas leases for exploration in northern Alaska,” said Bill Barron, director of the Division of Oil and Gas. Bidders must be qualified by Nov. 14 and bids must be received no later than Nov. 17.

Dominion East Ohio had crews on the scene Thursday at a campground about 10 miles south of Canton, OH, to repair a natural gas leak on a 30-inch diameter, high-pressure distribution line owned and operated by the company. Campers reported the smell of gas late Wednesday, and local emergency management officials began evacuating about 150 people there the next morning as a precaution. Dominion East Ohio spokesman Neil Durbin said gas running through the line has been rerouted and the leak has been isolated for repairs. Residential customers are not expected to be impacted, but two unspecified industrial customers will be. Durbin said it is unclear exactly how much natural gas had leaked from the line, and the company does not yet have an idea of when the repairs will be completed.