If you guessed the Permian or Argentina’s Vaca Muerta, you could be wrong according to Bill Armstrong, a high-risk, high-reward wildcatter and founder of Denver-based Armstrong Oil & Gas. Credited with discoveries of overlooked, under-explored formations in Alaska, Armstrong is half scientist, half intuitionist, and a veritable oil and gas whisperer in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Here, his finds have produced huge conventional fields, including the Pikka and Sockeye.

Reese Energy Consulting today is following the latest news from Alaska, where an oil and gas renaissance is underway. On the upstream side, international giants ExxonMobil and Shell have returned to the party after pulling out a decade ago. But then a lot has changed under the current Administration opening the National Petroleum Reserve. An auction in March to secure leases on 1.33 million acres on the North Slope captured a record $163.7 million from big bidders Exxon, Shell, Spain’s Repsol, ConocoPhillips, and Australia’s Santos. The North Slope is considered widely under-explored and estimated to hold up to 8.8 BBO and 25 TCF of natural gas.

Armstrong, of course, is already on top of this, with one writer calling the North Slope the Guyana of Alaska.