It's a pity that OEL did not pick up the cheap land but there is...

It's a pity that OEL did not pick up the cheap land but there is value in the Great Bear acreage so don't despair.
GB are at least a couple of years further advanced towards production and have spent $260 per acre on their land for this purpose.
OEL got a good buy.

This from OEL on 6 August 15.

About the Great Bear Acreage Great Bear is a private exploration company focused on exploring and developing conventional and unconventional resources on the North Slope of Alaska. Great Bear is the largest exploration leaseholder on the North Slope, having taken a position in a major play fairway south of the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk fields. Great Bear is the dominant exploration acreage holder in this highly prospective basin; holding 579,374 gross acres. Great Bear has undertaken significant exploration work on the acreage since 2011 with a cumulative spend in excess of US$150 million. This work includes: • Acquisition and processing of approximately 1800km2 of 3D seismic data. • Drilling of 2 unconventional stratigraphic test wells which cored 3 primary unconventional targets. Results from these wells indicate that the majority of the Great Bear acreage is expected to be liquids rich. These wells also encountered light oil in various conventional formations. • Drilling of a conventional exploration well (Alkaid-1) which specifically targeted a 3D defined Brookian reservoir. The Alkaid well results are under evaluation. The extensive, modern 3D seismic coverage, existing well control and proximity to the all-weather Dalton Highway and TAPS means that the Great Bear joint venture is well positioned to test numerous prospects during the 2015-6 and 2016-7 northern winter drilling seasons. The Great Bear acreage lies in the established conventional play fairways of the Ivishak, Kuparuk and Brookian sand reservoir systems in a region demonstrating oil maturity. • The Brookian turbidite fans are productive at offset Tarn, Meltwater and Tabasco Fields (field sizes of around 100mmbo to 300mmbo in place). • The Ivishak formation is the primary producing reservoir at the Prudhoe Bay Field (25 billion barrels of oil in place). • The Kuparuk sand play is regionally productive with the Kuparuk Field holding 5.9 billion barrels of oil in place and was also the target of the recent substantial oil discovery made by Repsol. The play types exhibited in the prospects so far identified by Great Bear have been the basis for other significant conventional oil discoveries in and around the Alaskan North Slope with discovered recoverable volumes being in the hundreds of millions of barrels. The size of these other discoveries within these plays provides an indication of the potential of Great Bear acreage in the success case.

Cheers all,