N argue that they are entitled to hold onto the leases

Point Thomson could hold nearly 1 billion barrels ofrecoverable liquids, according to a consultants hired by the stateDivision of Oil and Gas. Some of the leases date back to the 1960s, before thediscovery of oil at the Prudhoe Bay field. However, no wells havebeen drilled at Point Thomson since the winter of 1982-83. Exxon, the Point Thomson unit operator, and its partners principally BP (BP.L), Chevron Corp (CVX.N), and ConocoPhillips(COP.N) argue that they are entitled to hold onto the leases.

In numerous lawsuits and administrative appeals, the companiesargue that contrary to state assertions, they have been workingdiligently over the years toward development. The field hasunusual challenges because of its distance from existinginfrastructure and its extreme high-pressure reservoir conditions,they say. The companies last year released a plan of development the23rd they have submitted since Point Thomson leases were drawntogether in a unit in the 1970s that calls for commercialproduction of at least 10,000 barrels a day of oil to start by2014. Hisdepartment in November had rejected Exxon's application for thatice-road permit. (Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Bill Trott) Stocks Bonds.

BOSTON (Reuters) - John Updike, a leading writer of his generation who chronicled the drama of small-town American life with flowing and vivid prose, wit and a frank eye for sex, died on Tuesday of lung cancer He was 76. Entertainment People Arts"It is with great sadness that I report that John Updike died this morning," said Nicholas Latimer of Alfred A Knopf, a unit of Random House. "He was one of our greatest writers, and he will be sorely missed."The Pulitzer Prize-winning author died in a hospice in Massachusetts, the state where he lived for more than half a century, prolific in his writing of novels, short stories, essays and criticism.Updike's stories often focused on undercurrents of tension masked by the mundane surface of suburban America, which boomed in 1960s and 1970s as his career was taking off. Ripples of sexual tension were frequent.An early short story, "A&P," chronicled an adolescent boy's inner turmoil when three bikini-clad teenage girls appeared in the supermarket where he worked."It's one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down on the beach," Updike wrote, "and another thing in the cool of the A&P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor."Updike's frank focus on sex came before the profound changes in U.S. culture of the late 1960s lifted some of the taboo from the topic. His publisher rewrote portions of his second novel, "Rabbit, Run," before its first printing out of fear of being charged with obscenity.That novel introduced the fictional hero Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the subject of four Updike novels and a novella over four decades, which won him two Pulitzer Prizes for fiction.'AMONG THE VERY BEST'Updike was acclaimed nearly as much for his short stories, poetry and critical essays as for his 28 novels.More than 800 Updike stories, reviews, poems and articles were published in The New Yorker magazine from 1954 through 2008.