The provincial government held the June public offering of Crown petroleum and natural gas on Tuesday. In all, there were 100 leases posted covering nearly 25,000 hectares of land in the province. Of the 100 posted leases, 88 received acceptable bids including 52 in the Weyburn and Estevan area.  

The sale raised a total of $9,380,670 for the provincial revenues, averaging $491.28 a hectare. This was down from the April offering when just over $11 million was raised.  

Provincially, the highest bid received on a lease was for $1.383 million for a 1,042-hectare parcel in the Kindersley area, north of the Kelfield Mannville Oil Pool. The lease was awarded to Whispering Hills Resources.  

The most paid per hectare was for a lease in the southeast. The price, $9,172 per hectare for a 32-hectare lease, was paid for a parcel northeast of Midale. The lease was awarded to Surge Energy. Prospective for oil, it is in the Frobisher Beds of the Madison Group and Bakken Formation.  

In the southeast, the 52 leases that were sold raised a total of $4,004,142 and covered an area of 5,294 hectares. This was down from the April offering when the bids in the Weyburn-Estevan area totalled $6.439 million.  

The most paid for a single bid was $458,055 for a 259.8-hectare lease eight kilometres north of Oxbow. This lease is adjacent to the Alameda East Frobisher Oil Pool, and the successful bidder was ROK Resources.  

So far this fiscal year, the two public offerings have raised a total of $20,494,130. The next scheduled offering is on August 8th.