Feds schedule first lease sale in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve since 2019

Trump administration’s 5.5-million-acre auction is one of several mandated over next few years for federal lands in Alaska and federal waters off the state’s coast

Researchers' boats beached on the shore of Teshekpuk Lake, National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska at sunset in this undated photo. Teshekpuk Lake is the largest lake on the North Slope. An upcoming oil and gas lease sale announced by the Trump administration will be carried out under a new plan that makes previously off-limits areas in and around the lake available for oil development. (Tim Craig/U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

By Yereth Rosen

Alaska Beacon

The Trump administration is offering 5.5 million acres in Arctic Alaska for exploration in an oil and gas lease sale to be held next month.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Thursday announced the lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, the 23-million-acre land unit on the western North Slope. Bids are to be opened on March 9, the BLM said. Details of the sale are to be released once the sale notice is published in the Federal Register, according to the agency.

The sale is the first of five mandated over the next 10 years in the reserve under the sweeping tax and budget bill, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress last summer.

“The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska plays a vital role in advancing America’s energy independence, and Congress has repeatedly made clear their intent for timely leasing and responsible development in the region,” acting BLM Director Bill Groffy said in a statement. “This lease sale – the first in the reserve since 2019 – marks another exciting milestone as we work to unlock the full potential of this area.”

The budget bill mandated a series of oil and gas lease sales in federal territory elsewhere in Alaska as well. The first of six Cook Inlet federal offshore lease sales mandated through 2032 will be held on March 4 by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, another Department of the Interior agency. Meanwhile, the BLM has taken initial steps toward scheduling a lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, also part of a series mandated by the bill.

Unlike the federal waters of Cook Inlet or the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge, the National Petroleum Reserve has drawn keen industry interest in the past.

Parts of the Indiana-sized reserve are believed to hold high potential for oil, thanks in large part to a geologic feature called the Nanushuk formation that underlies it. About 1.6 million acres in the reserve are already under lease there, according to the BLM.

The biggest development underway in the reserve is ConocoPhillips’Willow project, which is expected to start producing in 2029, with an output that is expected to peak at180,000 barrels a day. There are other fields in the reserve that began producing in the last decade. The first to come online was ConocoPhillips’CD5 drill site, which is located on Native land within the reserve boundaries; it started production in 2015. ConocoPhillips’ Greater Mooses Tooth 1 site started producing in 2018 and itsGreater Mooses Tooth 2site started producing at the end of 2021.

The Obama administration had a policy of holding annual NPR-A lease sales that were timed to coincide with the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas’ annual areawide North Slope lease sales. The last NPR-A lease sale, held during the first Trump administration in 2019, offered nearly 4 million acres and drew 92 bids and close to $11.3 million in high bids.

The Trump administration’s upcoming sale offers more land than most of the past sales held since 1999 by different administrations. The last Obama-era lease sale, held in 2016, offered about 1.45 million acres and yielded $18.8 million in high bids, according to a BLM sale recap.

The Trump administration, through a new management plan, opened 82% of the reserve to oil development, compared to the Obama and Biden administration management plans that allowed leasing in about half of the reserve.

Among the areas the Trump administration opened up to development is the sensitive Teshekpuk Lake area in the reserve’s northeast corner, though with some narrow stipulations. Teshekpuk is the North Slope’s largest lake, and its adjacent wetlands have held various levels of protective status for decades, dating back to the Reagan administration. The area holds important habitat for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd, migrating birds and other resources that support traditional Indigenous subsistence harvests.

The Trump administration’s management plan, approved in December, jettisoned protections for the lake and its surrounding area, including one negotiated by residents of Nuiqsut, the Inupiat community nearest to existing development.

The lease sale announcement and the possibility of Teshekpuk Lake oil development drew quick criticism Thursday from The Wilderness Society.

The sale is part of the administration’s pattern of selling off public lands “for corporate profits at the expense of the American people, beloved wildlife, and Alaskans who depend on nearby fish and game,” Matt Jackson, the group’s Alaska senior manager, said in a statement. “The Teshekpuk Lake area in the Western Arctic is home to the largest congregation of migratory birds nesting in the entire global Arctic and the calving ground of the Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd. It is one of the last places on Earth we should be leasing.” 

• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has been reporting on Alaska news ever since, covering stories ranging from oil spills to sled-dog races. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.