Alaska oil and gas lease sales offering tracts on the North Slope and the Beaufort Sea drew almost no bids, state officials said Wednesday. Only six bids were submitted for onshore tracts in the central North Slope, and no bids were submitted for tracts in the Beaufort Sea or the Brooks Range foothills, the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas reported. It was the fewest bids submitted for a North Slope auction since 1999, when the state began its annual leasing program that offers all available state-owned territory in designated basins. In this sale, about 5 million acres were offered on the central North Slope, the core area for Alaska oil operations. In the sale for the Brooks Range foothills, which are south of the established oil fields, about 4.3 million acres were offered, and the Beaufort Sea sale offered about 1.7 million acres […]