The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has called for nominations and comments on available tracts to be considered for its fall 2016 oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). A notice in the Federal Register announced a 30-day period in which interested parties may nominate or comment on available tracts. The notice is the first step in the process leading up to the next oil and gas lease sale, which is tentatively scheduled for fall of 2016. BLM Alaska must receive all nominations and comments on the tracts for consideration by May 2. “This Call for Nominations and Comments gives industry, conservation groups, and other stakeholders the opportunity to provide input into which tracts should be included in or excluded from the sale,” said BLM Alaska State Director Bud Cribley. To select which tracts will be available for the oil and gas lease sale, BLM will consider the results from the call for nominations and comments, existing natural resource and environmental data, the location of existing leases, multiple-use conflicts, resource potential, industry interest, and other available information. There are 949 tracts on about 10.7 million acres that will be available for nomination and comment under the lease sale. Currently, there are 134 authorized oil and gas leases totaling 867,320 acres in the NPR-A. A map showing available areas is available on the BLM website, www.blm.gov/ak.

National Grid LNG LLC (NGLNG) on Friday applied at FERC to add liquefaction service at an existing liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Providence, RI. The project is called the Fields Point Liquefaction Project. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-jurisdictional LNG storage facility, which is owned and operated by NGLNG, is fully contracted by three firm storage customers for peak-shaving use. The storage facility currently receives LNG only by tanker truck. The project was requested by two of NGLNG’s affiliated storage customers to enable those customers to deliver gas in vapor form to be liquefied for storage as an alternative to delivering LNG by trucks [CP16-121]. The project to add a liquefier at the site was considered by FERC staff and others during its pre-filing review [PF15-28]. Storage customers The Narragansett Electric Co. and Boston Gas Co. requested the addition of liquefaction capability.