Oil Companies Skip Auction for Arctic Refuge Drilling Rights
- Tepid interest underscores challenges in Arctic development
- Environmentalists say development threatens pristine area
A caribou herd in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska on June 28.
Photographer: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Oil companies declined to bid in a US government auction for drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as industry interest wanes in a region that’s rich with crude but difficult to develop.
The Interior Department said it received no bids for the auction mandated by Congress before those offers were set to be unsealed Friday. It marked the second time in four years an auction of oil and gas leases in the refuge’s 1.6-million-acre coastal plain flopped, coming after a 2021 sale held under President-elect Donald Trump drew just 11 high bids, most of which were lodged by an Alaska economic development corporation.