Trump, exiting presidency, issues leases in ANWR; One day later Biden moves to block further leasing

On Tuesday, one day before President-elect Joe Biden was sworn into office, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management signed and issued leases on nine tracts that received qualifying bids in the Jan. 6 gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.

On Wednesday, after his swearing in, Biden sat down in the Oval Office of the White House and signed an executive order halting ANWR future leasing.

The new President opposes exploration and development in the refuge. Knowing that, Interior Department officials in the Trump administration timed the ANWR lease sale, and the award of the leases, to happen before Biden took office.

It isn’t clear what effect the executive order will have on the nine leases, seven of which are now held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state’s development finance corporation. Two leases were awarded to private entities that bid in the sale.

Also, there will be legal questions on whether the president, by executive order, can block congressional intent in ordering ANWR lease sales in the federal xx of 2017, which Murkowski helped steer through Congress.

AIDEA submitted bids on nine leases in the ANWR sale but BLM did not award two of the tracts on which the authority had bid. BLM did not give a reason why the two tracts were not awarded. AIDEA’s plan, meanwhile, is to negotiate exploration deals on its seven leases, agency managers have said.

One of the two leases awarded to a private companies was to Regenerate Alaska, Inc., an Alaska-based independent oil company affiliated with Australia-based 88 Energy. A lease was also awarded to Knik Arm Services, LLC, an Alaskan investment group.

BLM has now issued leases with 10-year terms on on 437,804 acres of some of the most highly prospective land on Alaska’s North Slope. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated there are nearly 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil on the Coastal Plain.

The lease now held by independent Regenerate Alaska is adjacent to the western border of ANWR, on the Canning River. Across the river, on state of Alaska lands, Jade Energy, a small company affiliated with Australia-based 88 Energy.

Jade Energy holds state leases with a confirmed oil discovery. The company is planning an exploration/delineation well this winter to further test the discovery made several years ago by BP. There are reports that the underground reservoir extends east across the river into ANWR subsurface below the federal lease held by Regenerate Alaska.

The lease now held by Knik Arm Services is further to the east and is in a part of the coastal plain near the Marsh Creek Anticline, a geological structure believed to have good potential based on surface geology and a seismic survey done in the 1980s.

Now that leases are issued property rights have been established and it may be difficult for the Biden administration to undo the action. However, any exploration and development will require permits from a Biden Interior Department, which may present a challenge to the new leaseholders.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski feels Biden’s new executive order is a slap in the face for Alaskans.

“Not only has Alaska proven time and time again we have the highest environmental standards when it comes to our responsible resource development but this right was guaranteed by the federal government more than 40 years ago when ANILCA was enacted. It is time to hold true on this long overdue promise,” Murkowski said in a statement Wednesday.

Congressman Don Young, a Republican, said Biden’s order could impede the Inupiat community of Kakovik, which is located on the northern coast of ANWR, from using lands within the refuge that it owns privately. Kaktovik Inupiat Corp. owns a 91,000-acre inholding within ANWR’s coastal plain, with subsurface mineral rights held by Arctic Slope Regional Corp. of Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow).

“When President Carter signed ANILCA into law over 40 years ago, Alaskans were promised the right to drill on the Coastal Plain. We have conducted an extensive environmental review and successfully carried out lease sales,” Young said.

“This is not the time to roll back our progress in ANWR, especially amid an economic downturn caused by a global pandemic. I call on President Biden to honor the law and the will of Alaskans, and allow our state’s energy projects to continue uninterrupted,” the congressman said.

There are also lawsuits pending filed by conservation groups against the Trump Interior Department over the adequacy of environmental studies supporting the lease sale.