OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF SALE POSTPONED
  Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas
  lease sale number 97 in the Beaufort Sea, tentatively
  schedualed for January 1988 has been postponed, the U.S.
  Department of Interior said.
      Alan Powers, chief of the Minerals Maanagement Service for
  the department, said the delay is to have more time to study
  the effects of drilling noise on whale migrations.
      Powers said the state has asked for additional noise data
  for the sale area off Alaska's North Slope. A new date has not
  been set, but it will likely be no sooner than next March,
  Powers said.
      Some 3,930 blocks encompassing about 21 mln acres are
  involved in the proposed sale. The area is between three and
  160 miles off the northern coast of Alaska in the Artic Ocean
  between the Canadian border and 162 degrees west longitude.
  

