AIDEA should sit on oil leases

If it wins leases at the federal sale next Wednesday the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority may have to hold them until until the end of the Biden administration — or longer.

The leases will be for very promising oil and gas prospects on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a 19.3 million acre refuge in the northeastern portion of Alaska’s Arctic.

Many people, including some Alaskans, are opposed to oil and gas drilling in ANWR because the area is a refuge and the home to a large and important caribou herd. But past industry experience in Alaska’s wild country suggests the leases can be drilled and developed with minimal damage to the area and its wild creatures.

AIDEA adopted the strategy because the energy industry is being pressured to drop any plans it has to bid on and develop oil and gas leases in the Arctic. The strategy is to spend up to $20 million to enter minimum bids on all leases offered at the sale and pay whatever rentals are due for as long as needed.

The state agency will presumably wind up with the bulk of the leases, though the industry could surprise us by putting its own money up to buy some.

If necessary AIDEA should sit on the leases until the people of the United States take a realistic look at how long oil and gas are going to be required to fuel the world’s engines and to provide heat and light to our homes and offices.

Though there is a lot of sentiment for moving on, we don’t yet have the kind of technology that will replace the machines powered by oil and gas. And even if it pops up tomorrow morning, converting the world and getting rid of all our gas-guzzlers and such gadgetry will presumably take several generations at least.

AIDEA may have to sit on the leases until there is no longer any hope for new oil and gas drilling in the Alaska Arctic.

Much of ANWR is untouched and should be protected for its wild animals and untouched tundra, but this country could and should develop the major oil and gas deposits there.

Much of the opposition for Arctic drilling is misplaced. The same opposition developed before the first leases were sold in the central Alaskan Arctic back in the 1960s. I worked for Atlantic Richfield Company at the time it discovered the Prudhoe Bay Field and can testify the damage and devastation predicted by the environmentalists never occurred.

Robert O. Anderson, chairman of the ARCO board of directors, ordered the hiring of Angus Gavin, executive vice president of Ducks Unlimited of Canada. Anderson was a DU member and knew Gavin and his professional credentials. Gavin’s orders were to study the company’s Prudhoe Bay Field operations and advise Anderson and his board on how well or how badly things were going.

Angus nominally reported to me, but the orders I got were to support him and get him anything he thought he might need to do his job. That included hiring airplanes to fly him everywhere he wanted to go on the Slope. I flew with him a few times and saw Angus give the pilots (every plane had two) orders to turn left or right or to fly low whenever he saw something interesting that he wanted to see closer.

At the time the crews that worked at and around the Prudhoe Bay operations center and field operations were amazed to see caribou grazing near their buildings and equipment.

I asked Angus one day why the caribou stayed so close to the oilfield operations. He said the animals were calving or about to calve and they had learned that the wolves and bears shied away from humans. And the caribou are most vulnerable to predators when they are on their calving grounds.

The caribou were using oilfield operations to keep the predators at bay. They wandered away after the young ones were old enough to run from them.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of six books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.