US to auction almost 400,000 hectares off Alaska for oil drilling

THE Biden administration plans to offer hundreds of thousands of hectares off the coast of Alaska for new oil and gas drilling next month, a sale mandated in Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act to win the support of holdout West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

The auction of more than 387,689 hectares in Alaska’s Cook Inlet next month, announced by the Interior Department on Monday (Nov 28), could produce nearly 200 million barrels of crude and 300 billion cubic feet of natural gas over the lifetime of the lease sales, according to department estimates, though it’s debatable whether any drilling will actually occur.

The lease sale, to be held Dec 30, was one of several previously cancelled offerings reinstated in the Democrats’ climate spending bill signed into law in August and considered a linchpin to win Manchin’s support. The Biden administration announced it had cancelled the Cook Inlet sale in May citing a lack of interest, prior to the legislation’s enactment.

Still, news of the sale that includes federal waters stretching roughly from Kalgin Island in the north to Augustine Island in the south, drew outrage from environmental groups, such as the Center for Biological Diversity. The nonprofit has said the activity would harm one of the world’s most endangered whale populations — the Cook Inlet beluga — as well as other species. BLOOMBERG