More of Cook Inlet’s oil and gas resources are now in the hands of an independent oil and gas company.

Chevron and Hilcorp Alaska, LLC announced Tuesday that the Houston-based company is buying Chevron’s Cook Inlet oil and gas assets for an undisclosed sum.

The transaction is pending regulatory approvals, but the announcement said the companies expect the deal to close by the end of the year.

According to the companies’ announcement, production from the assets includes about 3,900 barrels of oil and 85 million cubic feet of natural gas, per day.

North Dakota’s Senate Republican majority leader was killed Monday afternoon in a one-vehicle accident on the Sterling Highway.

Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters confirmed that Robert Stenehjem died as a result of the one-car rollover accident at Mile 104.2 of the Sterling Highway, south of Soldotna.

Peters did not know the identities of the three passengers other than Stenehjem.

It’s on! The Annual District Buoy Tender Roundup begins today in Juneau as nine U.S. Coast Guard buoy tenders from Alaska, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia gather to study, train and compete in skills they will use in their various ships and on the waterways they sail.

“It’s about training and lessons learned,” said Lt. Jason Haag, commanding officer of the Coast Guard cutter Henry Blake. “It’s an opportunity to get everybody together and is in our best interest.”

State legislators are giving good marks, so far, for a state-sponsored study of a possible 24-inch natural gas pipeline built from the North Slope, but questions are beginning to emerge. A 737-mile pipeline would cost $7.52 billion in 2011 dollars, the study concluded, and could deliver gas to Interior and Southcentral Alaska by 2019.