\n A federal deadline came and went this week for oil companies to bid on around 1 million acres of drilling territory off Alaska\u2019s Cook Inlet.\n <\/p>\n
\n No one did.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cAt this time, no bids have been received,\u201d the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said in a statement on its website.\n <\/p>\n
\n Alaska\u2019s Cook Inlet was once a major basin for oil and gas, but its reserves have been declining for decades. As its energy resources are depleted, it has also gotten increasingly expensive for companies to drill there.\n <\/p>\n
\n As a result, the number of companies who want to develop energy there is scant.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Wednesday, for example, the state of Alaska also posted dismal results of a separate auction it runs in the area. Of the close to 3 million of acres of waters the state offered up for oil and gas drilling, just one company submitted a $600 bid for a 20-acre parcel.\n <\/p>\n
\n Even when Biden officials canceled a lease sale in Cook Inlet in 2022, they pointed to a lack of interest from the industry. That move caused an outcry from Alaska\u2019s federal delegation and even some Democrats who said they were concerned about the administration\u2019s approach to energy. But when Congress mandated a lease sale there later that same year, just one company submitted a bid to drill.\n <\/p>\n
\n Despite the latest lackluster showing, the federal government will hold five more lease sales in Cook Inlet from now until 2032, because Congress and Trump mandated it in their tax law passed last year.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cRegular, predictable federal leasing is the foundation for maintaining domestic energy production,\u201d a spokesperson for the Interior Department said in a statement. \u201cEven when a sale receives no bids, maintaining a transparent, congressionally mandated schedule keeps Cook Inlet opportunities available for future investment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Alaska\u2019s two Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan each called the lack of interest from industry in the most recent auction \u201cdisappointing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n In a statement, Murkowski said the Cook Inlet results were \u201chardly surprising or permanent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe will continue to provide access and encourage interest in Cook Inlet because Southcentral gas production is declining, local energy costs are rising, and the region is teetering on the brink of LNG imports,\u201d Murkowski said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want that, and offering new acreage is one way to try to forestall it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Environmental groups who have sought to protect endangered beluga whales and other species in the area cheered the development.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat an embarrassment for Trump\u2019s fossil fuel fantasy and what great news for Cook Inlet wildlife that this lease sale was such a flop,\u201d Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.\n <\/p>\n
\n Environmental law group Earthjustice, who was planning to sue the federal government over the lease sale, urged the administration to \u201cabandon its futile efforts to sell off these public waters for oil and gas development.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe are glad to see no companies bid in this unlawful lease sale,\u201d Earthjustice attorney Hannah Payne-Foster said in a statement.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal deadline came and went this week for oil companies to bid on around 1 million acres…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,9,7],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116179634939604358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}