Thu, 01/14/2021 - 12:18pm
The State of Alaska’s North Slope oil and gas lease sale netted only about half of the bid revenue that the Bureau of Land Management’s sealed bid auction for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain did, but interest from industry was still far greater.
The Division of Oil and Gas collected approximately $7 million across 115 bids from five companies, officials announced Wednesday afternoon following the morning bid opening.
The state’s North Slope and Beaufort Sea lease sales are traditionally a minor annual event with a small audience of industry representatives, reporters and others present to watch the bid opening. COVID-19 precautions prevented that this year.
Congress paid for a second new heavy icebreaker among its year-end spending flurry and also helped Nome move one step closer to having a place to moor it.
Wed, 01/06/2021 - 9:03am
Interior Department leaders published their decision to open nearly 7 million more acres of the western North Slope to the oil and gas industry Jan. 4 while federal attorneys prepared to defend the agency’s leasing plan for the other side of the region in court later that day.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed the record of decision for the latest land-use plan for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which authorizes Bureau of Land Management Alaska officials to offer more than 18.5 million acres of the 23 million-acre federal parcel for bid in future oil and gas lease sales.
Formally known as the NPR-A Integrated Activity Plan, the management scheme marks another subtle but significant achievement by the Trump administration in its push to increase energy and mineral development on federal lands across the state.
Wed, 01/06/2021 - 9:03am
Sen. Lisa Murkowski saw her nearly six-year effort at an energy reform bill finally passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump last month. (Photo/Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/Tribune News Service)
Tucked amongst the 5,500-some pages of legislation with more than $2 trillion in spending and COVID-19 aid that President Donald Trump signed last month was one of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s biggest policy accomplishments, but according to Murkowski, that’s sort of how she wanted it.
The 532 pages of the year-end omnibus spending bill that comprise the Energy Act of 2020 culminate almost six years of work, procedural hang-ups and near-victories for Murkowski, who credited her staff for their continual effort.
Wed, 12/23/2020 - 9:08am
The Star Princess is seen in Whittier in this Journal file photo. Vaccines have given some in Alaska’s tourism-dependent economy hope for recovery after virtually the entire season was canceled in 2020, but a full rebound isn’t likely until 2022. (Photo/Andrew Jensen/AJOC)
Alaska is positioned to possibly become an even more popular destination when travel eventually resumes en masse but oil markets aren’t likely to rebound nearly as well despite relative recent strength, according to the leaders of some of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.’s large investment partners.
Recent gains in oil markets have surpassed the expectations of most investors but are also tentative, given the dominant presence COVID-19 continues to have over much of the world, according to the leaders of Riverstone Holdings LLC.