The U.S. Department of Interior’s first oil lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska since 2019 drew more than 430 bids during a March 18 auction that netted $163.7 million.
It was a record amount for a federal public lands lease sale.
At least 10 companies participated in the hours’ long auction, bidding on tracts that span 1.3 million acres of the 5.5 million acres the Trump administration has opened to oil and gas exploration on the 23 million-acre reserve.
More than 13 million of those acres were placed off limits from oil and gas leasing by the Biden administration as part of its March 2024 decision to allow ConocoPhillips to proceed with its $8 billion Alaska Willow Project within the reserve….