The U.S. Forest Service approved a plan for oil and gas drilling in the Katalla region of the Chugach National Forest, a site on the Gulf of Alaska coast that was the location of the state's first commercial oil production. Cassandra Energy Corp., an Anchorage-based independent, has federal permission to conduct new exploration at an old oilfield site east of Prince William Sound that produced about 154,000 barrels in the early part of the 20th century.