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Activists, Native Alaskans, and more recently large shareholders have worked to persuade lenders and insurers they were jeopardizing the climate, their investments, and their reputation by underwriting Arctic drilling.
A group of investment firms, conservationists and indigenous groups have called on some of the world’s biggest insurers to cease supporting oil and gas projects in the U.S. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, even as the Trump administration advances plans to auction drilling rights in the Alaska wilderness.
In Alaska, Michigan and Norway, partisans on the left and right are sparring in the courts to implement their vision for the future of energy. Operations from small shale plays to multi-billion-dollar offshore installations suddenly hang in the balance as the regulatory outlook becomes increasingly cloudy.
The Interior Department is set to issue a formal “call for nominations” as soon as Monday, kick-starting a final effort to get input on what tracts to auction inside the refuge’s 1.56-million-acre coastal plain.
Mike Slaton, Contributing Editor
In the Arctic Circle, oil and gas interests are often a study of polar opposites. To some it looks like riches; for others, potential ruin.
“Any company that bids on leases or expresses interest in destroying the Arctic Refuge for oil will face a major public backlash and long-lasting damage to their reputation,” warned the groups, including the Wilderness Society, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club.
Environmentalists and Alaska natives are challenging the Trump administration’s decision to sell drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, arguing the government gave short shrift to the impact on polar bears and the region’s other wildlife.
“Today’s announcement brings us one step closer to unlocking Alaska’s energy potential, which will create good-paying jobs and provide a new revenue stream for the state,” API senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs Frank Macchiarola said.
The Trump administration on Monday authorized a sweeping plan to sell drilling rights and spur oil development in Alaska’s rugged Arctic refuge, setting up a possible auction by the end of 2020 and a political clash if the president loses the November election.
The company will bring back output in Alaska and other states next month, with Canadian production coming back in the third quarter. “Given ongoing variability and uncertainty in the outlook for production curtailments, the company will continue to suspend forward-looking guidance and sensitivities,” Conoco said in a statement Tuesday.
Canadian and Alaskan crude that normally travels to the U.S. West Coast is finding a market in China, where demand is almost back to pre-pandemic levels.
Bleak crude prices and fuel demand forecasts won’t blunt oil company bidding for Arctic drilling rights, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said Monday.
The latest front in the war against drilling for oil in Alaska’s rugged wildlife refuge isn’t Washington -- it’s Wall Street.
Alaska’s $67 billion sovereign wealth fund, a pool that invests some of the state’s revenue from oil and other resources, is expressing displeasure with banks that oppose financing new Arctic exploration or development.
The Trump administration is moving to sell drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said Saturday.
Mike Slaton, Contributing Editor
Dancing on melting ice
The Trump administration on Thursday took a major step toward auctioning oil drilling rights across every acre of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain, hours after the House of Representatives voted to outlaw the activity.
This new assessment updates a 2008 USGS study that estimated about 85 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas resources within gas hydrates on the Alaska North Slope.
Snow depths on Alaska’s North Slope have thinned this year, the University of Alaska Fairbanks said in a study, creating a possible obstacle for exploration in part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge thought to harbor more than 7 Bbbl of oil.
BP has closed one chapter in its U.S. business, exiting Alaska decades after transforming the state into an oil powerhouse. Now it’s time for a new phase in the company’s American story.