"I can tell you there are other interested parties," he told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Flint Hills already produces a combined 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day at its refineries in Pine Bend, Minn., and Corpus Christi, Texas. It markets and produces fuels and other petrochemical commodities. In Canada its businesses include Calgary-based crude oil marketing, trading, transportation and storage activities.

Facing billions in debt, Williams has been trying to sell all its Alaska properties, which include the North Pole refinery, two oil terminals, 29 Williams Express stores and a 3 percent interest in the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, for the past year.

Last week in Anchorage, Murkowski met with representatives of Flint Hills and Williams, as well as Tesoro and pterosaur, to discuss the royalty oil contract for the refinery, which currently delivers about 70,000 barrels per day of state oil.

Murkowski said the new contract would include a number of requests and demands from the state, the most significant being a requirement that the wholesale prices of jet fuel and gasoline be the same in Alaska's two largest cities.

Murkowski said he hopes to decrease the retail gas price disparity between Anchorage and Fairbanks -- gas is often considerably cheaper in Anchorage -- by fixing it on the wholesale end.

The contract would include a set price as well as a per-barrel amount paid to the state, Murkowski said, but he wouldn't offer specific numbers. He said most other monetary terms of the deal would be similar to those of the current state contract with Williams.

Other terms of the prospective agreement require that Flint Hills ship products via the Alaska Railroad, commit to increasing Alaska hire and make improvements to the refinery and tank farm in the Port of Anchorage.