The territorial cabinet has extended at the last minute six oil and gas permits that were scheduled to expire at midnight.

The order-in-council signed by Energy, Mines and Resources Minister Ranj Pillai was released late this morning.

The six permits were extended for one year. They are at the heart of the $100-million-plus exploration program in northern Yukon.

Richard Wyman of Chance Oil – formerly Northern Cross Yukon – explained in an interview Tuesday he didn’t know what would happen if his company’s permits were not extended.

The company received extensions for several parcels of land under permit when it applied for the extensions in May 2016, in accordance with amendments made in December 2015 to the Yukon Oil and Gas Act, he said.

Wyman said they did not, however, receive extensions for the six parcels of land that make up the focus of the company’s ongoing exploration program, and the company was not told why.

As a condition of the order-in-council, Chance Oil must provide the Yukon government with $1.2 million by Sept. 8. The permit extensions are for one year.

Whether the lands would have reverted back to ordinary lands not become available again for exploration unless they went back through the public bidding process, is not certain.

Northern Cross Yukon obtained the permits in 2007 following the standard process, with a commitment to spend millions on exploration.

The company obtained several other permits.

The total spending commitment was more than $20 million, but Northern Cross said it has spent more than $100 million over the years on its exploration program, which included drilling four holes.

Its ongoing exploration plans came to a halt in early 2016, when the Yukon Environmental and and Socio-economic Assessment Board referred its application for another phase of exploration up the board’s executive committee after 18 months under review.

Northern Cross asked for a judicial review of the referral, arguing it was not proposing anything the assessment board’s Dawson City office hadn’t handled in the past. It lost on the judicial review.

The area for the next phase of exploration is within the six permits that received extensions.

Chance Oil has also filed a lawsuit against the Yukon government.

The company claims $2 billion in lost potential revenue because of the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing brought into effect late last year by the newly elected Liberal government.