ANCHORAGE, Alaska, June 28 (Reuters) – Alaska’s Cook Inlet basin still has potential for abundant natural gas and oil discoveries even after five decades of production, according to a federal report issued on Tuesday, signaling potential revenue for the state and more interest from developers.

In the first resource assessment issued since 1995, the U.S. Geological Survey said the inlet area likely holds 19 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas — nearly nine times the last estimate — and 600 million barrels of recoverable crude oil.

The new report is much more optimistic about remaining natural gas in the inlet than the assessment issued 16 years ago, a difference the USGS attributed to improved data, new geologic information and better technology for recovering the oil and gas.

In 1995, the USGS estimated that Cook Inlet likely had 2.14 trillion cubic feet of gas remaining to be discovered.

The new report includes the first-ever estimates for unconventional natural gas in Cook Inlet, most of which is coal gas and which accounts for a quarter of total estimated undiscovered natural gas resources. That was not included in the 1995 report as it was not then considered recoverable.

The Cook Inlet basin, in production since the 1950s, is older than the more prolific North Slope. Since 1958 the Cook Inlet basin has produced 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 7.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the USGS. Oil has been mostly refined for regional markets, while natural gas has fueled regional utilities and been liquefied for export to Japan and other countries.

The new USGS report comes a week after a state-sponsored oil and gas lease sale for Cook Inlet drew brisk bidding, including $9 million from Apache Corp (APA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). The total $11.1 million in high bids made it the fourth most lucrative Cook Inlet lease sale in state history.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The former top administrator of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission has been indicted on charges of embezzling more than $100,000 from the agency, federal prosecutors said on Monday.

Teresa Judkins, chief executive of the commission from 2007 until she was fired in 2008, is accused of raiding the agency’s coffers to pay for personal air travel, the purchase of a snowmobile and other benefits to herself and her family.

The commission, based in Barrow, oversees traditional subsistence whaling in Alaska’s northern coastal villages and represents native whalers before the International Whaling Commission. The agency is led by a board of whaling captains from different villages who hire the executive director.

The AEWC holds a relatively high profile in global whaling concerns, advocating for relatively small subsistence hunts and habitat protection but opposing commercial hunting.

The commission also negotiates with government agencies and oil companies over potential impacts to whales and hunters and conducts research and educational projects concerning the endangered bowhead whale and its connection to native culture.

Under federal law, Alaska natives may hunt whales but only for traditional use and not for commercial purposes. In the United States, non-natives are barred from hunting any marine mammals, according to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Judkins, 51, was charged with two counts each of theft, fraud and misapplication from an organization receiving federal funds. The maximum penalty for each count is 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, federal officials said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Failed Senate candidate Joe Miller must reimburse Alaska more than $17,000 in legal fees and costs incurred during his fight to overturn Lisa Murkowski’s write-in victory, a state judge ruled on Friday.

Miller, a Tea Party favorite, beat the more moderate Murkowski in the Republican primary. But she then mounted a write-in candidacy in the general election and beat him by about 4.5 percentage points.

Miller sued to overturn the results, arguing that elections officials improperly counted write-in ballots, but was rejected by a Superior Court judge, a ruling that was upheld at the state Supreme Court.

State officials asked a judge to compel the former candidate to reimburse the state for part of the costs, a request that Superior Court Judge William Carey approved.

Carey, in his ruling, said that Miller did not qualify as a public interest litigant because his lawsuit sought to secure something of value for himself: A Senate seat with a $174,000-a-year salary and other personal benefits.

“The main thrust of this action was not, in this court’s view, to altruistically promote and preserve constitutional protections, but to win an election, with the political and pecuniary benefits that would accrue thereby,” Carey wrote.

Miller, a Fairbanks attorney who was backed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, had challenged Murkowski as too liberal and too prone to compromising with Democrats.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Baseball fans in Alaska were fuming after a traditional midnight game, held every year without lights during the twilight hours of the summer solstice, was postponed for the first time because a visiting California team complained it was too dark.

Umpires suspended the Alaska Baseball League amateur game with the score tied 1-1 in the 10th inning at about 1:30 a.m. local time (0930 GMT) Wednesday, about three hours into the contest.

The game between the home team, Goldpanners of Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Waves of Oceanside, California, resumed on Wednesday evening, and the Goldpanners ultimately won 2-1.

The “Midnight Sun Baseball Game” has been played in Fairbanks each year since 1906 on the night of the summer solstice June 21, when the glow from the year’s longest day allows the game to continue into the wee hours without artificial light.

Fairbanks is slightly south of the Arctic Circle, so the sun does set briefly on the summer solstice. But even then, it dips just below the horizon, providing some light to see.

This year marked the first time in its history that the unilluminated night game had been postponed, though in 1984 a visiting team from Taiwan forfeited altogether when its players also complained of poor visibility, officials said.

“This almost happens every year. The opposing team starts chirping about postponing the game due to darkness because they’re usually behind,” said the Goldpanners’ assistant general manager Todd Dennis.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Baseball fans in Alaska were fuming after a traditional midnight game, held every year without lights during the twilight hours of the summer solstice, was postponed because a visiting California team complained it was too dark.

Umpires officiating the Alaska Baseball League amateur game suspended play with the score tied 1-1 in the 10th inning at about 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, roughly three hours after the matchup started.

The contest between the home-team Goldpanners of Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Waves of Oceanside, California, resumed on Wednesday evening, and the Goldpanners ultimately won, 2-1.

The Midnight Sun Baseball Game has been played in Fairbanks each year since 1906 on the night of the summer solstice each June 21, when the glow from the year’s longest day allows the game to continue into the wee hours without artificial light.

Fairbanks is slightly south of the Arctic Circle, so the sun does set briefly on the summer solstice. But even then, it dips just below the horizon, providing some light to see.

This year marked the first time in its history that the unilluminated night game had been postponed, though in 1984 a visiting team from Taiwan forfeited altogether when its players likewise complained of poor visibility, officials said.

“This almost happens every year. The opposing team starts chirping about postponing the game due to darkness because they’re usually behind,” said the Goldpanners’ assistant general manager, Todd Dennis.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Federal scientists are on the lookout for the Eskimo curlew, as they work to determine if the elusive shorebird last seen two decades ago still exists.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it is seeking any information about the Eskimo curlew, a tundra-nesting bird once abundant over the skies of North and South America, which was nearly hunted into oblivion by the mid-20th century.

The agency, which made its announcement in the Federal Register on Wednesday, will review whether the bird should continue to be classified as endangered or formally designated as extinct.

The last sighting confirmed by the Fish and Wildlife Service was in Nebraska in 1987, said Bruce Woods, a spokesman for the agency.

An unconfirmed sighting — of an adult and a chick — was recorded in 1983 in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Woods said.

The Eskimo curlew population once numbered hundreds of thousands, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. It is the smallest of four species of Western Hemisphere curlews, and is known for its long migration route from Arctic tundra breeding grounds to wintering lands in South America.

But the birds died off in drastic numbers due to overhunting, the loss of prairie habitat that was converted from grasslands to agriculture and the extinction of a type of grasshopper that made up much of their diet.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said on Wednesday she was pausing her “One Nation” bus tour to answer the call of jury duty and denied media reports her much-hyped multi-state jaunt had been cut short.

“The next leg of the tour continues when the time comes,” she said in a message posted on Facebook. “In the meantime, no one should jump to conclusions — certainly not the media with their long track record of getting things wrong or just making things up.”

The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has hinted she may run for president in 2012, and many have viewed her bus tour as a possible campaign warm-up should Palin ever declare herself a White House candidate.

Palin kicked off her “One Nation” bus tour over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May and visited a number of historic sites along the East Coast.

Responding to a flurry of reports on Wednesday that a number of future stops had been removed from her itinerary, Palin went online to clarify her plans.

“It hasn’t been canceled,” she wrote. “As I said myself at the end of the East Coast leg of the tour, the summer is long, and I’m looking forward to hitting the open road again.

“The coming weeks are tight because civic duty calls (like most everyone else, even former governors get called up for jury duty) and I look forward to doing my part just like every other Alaskan,” her message said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, June 22 (Reuters) – Apache Corp (APA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on Wednesday won rights to explore for oil and gas in wide areas of Alaska’s Cook Inlet, including rights to a known offshore oil field that was recently abandoned by its developer.

Apache, a Houston-based independent energy company, submitted most of the $11 million in high bids received in the lease sale held by the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas this week. Among the tracts Apache won were portions of the Cosmopolitan field that was being developed by Pioneer Natural Resources Co (PXD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), according to the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas.

Apache’s Alaska spokeswoman said the company is targeting new oil finds in the inlet, Alaska’s oldest producing oil and gas basin. For oil, “Apache has seen that Cook Inlet is under-explored,” said company spokeswoman Lisa Parker.

“Apache contemplates that as we explore for oil, we will also encounter gas,” she said.

Apache’s Alaska subsidiary already had over 300,000 acres in Cook Inlet leases prior to Wednesday’s sale, Parker said.

The Cosmopolitan leases were relinquished by Pioneer, after it decided early this year to abandon the project in favor of more lucrative options.

The leases were sold by the state as a bundle and are subject to special conditions, including quick submission of a detailed drilling plan and a completed well within four years.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A pair of bald eagles nesting near the Post Office in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, has taken to dive-bombing customers, in one case drawing blood, authorities said on Tuesday.

The eagles are raising newly hatched chicks for the second consecutive year in a nest on a bluff by the post office.

And for the second consecutive year, they have been trying to chase off people — apparently unaware that the Postal Service uses a stylized eagle as its logo.

Two people were attacked last week, and one of the eagles swooped down on a patron on Monday, Alaska State Wildlife Troopers spokesman Sergeant Robin Morrisett said.

One of the eagles managed to scratch up its victim, said Morrisett, who is based on Unalaska Island. “I guess it actually drew blood,” he said.

Authorities have posted signs and advised people to be careful about their surroundings, but there are no plans to move the nests or fight back against the eagles, he said.

Bald eagles have a history of confronting people at the post office and elsewhere on the island, Morrisett said, adding that recently an eagle swooped very close to him before returning to its nest.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – An Alaska sled dog musher who had been missing since the Memorial Day weekend has been located alive and safe, the Alaska State Troopers said Saturday.

Melanie Gould, the subject of a search that started June 1, contacted troopers in Cantwell, a community outside of Denali National Park. She is a seven-time veteran of the celebrated Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race,

Gould was transported from there to a hospital in Wasilla, said Megan Peters, a trooper spokeswoman. “She appeared to be in good condition,” Peters said in an email.

Peters did not elaborate on Gould’s medical state.

Gould did tell troopers that she knew they had been searching for her and that she stayed away from those efforts until now, Peters said.

Troopers on Friday called off their search for Gould, a 34-year-old musher who abruptly abandoned her home, dogs and jobs in the town of Talkeetna, near Mount McKinley.

The trooper search was initiated after Gould failed to show up for work at a local bakery on May 31. An employer contacted the troopers, and friends launched their own search efforts. Friends also set up a Facebook page titled “Have You Seen Melanie Gould?”