HARRISBURG — Five companies are willing to pay more than $128 million for the right to drill for natural gas on Pennsylvania public forest land as the cash-strapped state scrounges for money.

The unsealing of winning bids Tuesday by the state forests department unofficially awarded drilling rights on nearly 32,000 acres in northcentral Pennsylvania.

The prize is the right to drill in the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation, which some geologists expect to become the nation's most prolific gas field.

The current state budget relies on $60 million in revenue from gas drilling in state forests. However, Gov. Ed Rendell and legislative leaders agreed in October that next year's state budget would count on additional $180 million from gas drilling revenue, Rendell's spokesman Gary Tuma said.

The per-acre average bid of about $4,100 is less than the $5,000-plus that some groups of private landowners in northeastern Pennsylvania received last year.

But it also is higher than the approximately $2,400 per acre eventually reaped when the state first sold Marcellus Shaleleases in 2008.

Department of Conservation and Natural Resources spokeswoman Chris Novak said the agency must review the bid paperwork before it can announce winning bidders.

Six tracts in the Elk, Moshannon, Sproul, Susquehannock and Tioga state forests were up for bid.

The highest bids were submitted by Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma City, Exco Resources of Dallas, Seneca Resources of Houston, Anadarko Petroleum of Houston, and Penn Virginia of Radnor, Pa.

Seneca submitted two high bids. The highest per acre bid was from Exco, which bid $5,250 per acre on a Clearfield County tract.