Beaufort

A federal district court judge in Alaska last Friday ruled an executive order (EO) issued by President Trump in 2017 opening areas of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans to oil and gas leasing was “unlawful and invalid,” and ordered the areas closed to leasing.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said it plans to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposed offshore oil and gas lease sale to be held next year for tracts offshore Alaska.

Alaska is holding oil and natural gas lease sales in November to offer open tracts for development on the North Slope, North Slope Foothills, as well as the Beaufort Sea. The auctions come as experts suggest the North Slope is poised to re-emerge as a major U.S. producing area.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is calling for information and nominations by April 30 for a proposed oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea Planning Area in 2019.

Starting next month, a subsidiary of Italy’s Eni SpA could begin drilling up to four exploratory wells from an artificial island in the Beaufort Sea, after the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) approved the company’s application to drill.

It’s a case of natural gas all around and not an MMBtu to burn. Communities on Canada’s Beaufort Sea coast, hoping to retrieve their lost status as a breeding ground of production and pipeline designs, have set out to melt their industrial deep freeze by developing local gas.

The State of Alaska has asked to intervene in a lawsuit that environmental groups filed last May against the Trump administration for possibly opening the Beaufort and Chukchi seas to offshore oil and natural gas leasing.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) gave conditional approval for a subsidiary of Italy’s Eni SpA to drill four exploratory wells on an artificial island in the Beaufort Sea, on leases the company acquired back in 2005.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said an executive order (EO) signed by President Trump last month in support of offshore energy development, including oil and gas, will have a negligible cost impact to the federal government.