Arctic

The Obama administration removed the Beaufort and Chukchi seas from its five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program on Friday but kept 10 potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and one in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.

A group that includes six native Alaskan communities on the North Slope has joined an advertising campaign to persuade the Interior Department (DOI) to keep the Arctic Ocean in its proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas will offer more than 5,000 tracts of state-owned acreage for oil and natural gas leasing Dec. 14 in the Beaufort Sea Areawide 2016W, North Slope Areawide 2016W and North Slope Foothills Areawide 2016 lease sales.

A coalition of lawmakers in the House of Representatives asked President Obama Wednesday to permanently remove the Atlantic and Arctic oceans from future offshore oil and gas leasing.

In an effort to counter pressure from environmentalists, a coalition of industry groups and others has launched an advertising campaign to persuade the Interior Department (DOI) to keep the Arctic Ocean in its proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022.

The Department of Interior (DOI) said Royal Dutch Shell plc’s misfortunes in the Arctic served at least part of the basis for a new final rule governing offshore oil and gas exploration by floating vessels in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. But critics say the new rule will hamper development by making it even more expensive to drill there.

Former Defense Department Secretary William Cohen and 15 former military leaders are urging the Interior Department (DOI) to keep the Arctic Ocean in its proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022.

Eight conservation groups led by Earthjustice have filed to intervene and defend a decision by federal officials to deny Royal Dutch Shell plc the right to extend its drilling leases offshore Alaska.

Critics of the Interior Department’s proposed Well Control Rule told a Senate panel Tuesday that regulators are taking a one-size-fits-all approach that will only provide a modest improvement to offshore drilling safety. But the government fired back, saying the industry had conducted a “bad analysis” and inflated the overall cost of the rule: $883 million, versus $32 billion.