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The Biden administration is pursuing changes that could make it impossible to produce crude oil from new leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, Bloomberg reported Monday, alarming oil industry advocates and delighting environmental and climate activists.
Alaska’s congressional delegation said the Biden plan is “suddenly and dramatically reinterpreting the law so that it can treat 13.1M acres [of the reserve] as de facto federal wilderness,” and would “result in unprecedented restrictions on a variety of activities across” the reserve.
The proposal “would discourage investment on the North Slope by adding more layers of permitting requirements and restrictions, even for existing leases,” an executive at ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) – the oil major with the largest presence in Alaska – told Bloomberg.
Oil industry concern has focused on provisions directing the government to presume oil leasing and infrastructure development “should not be permitted” even in areas of the reserve open for that activity unless there is specific information clearly demonstrating the work can be done with “no or minimal adverse effects” on the habitat, the Bloomberg report said.
The U.S. Interior Department has said the measure will not affect “currently authorized oil and gas operations,” which presumably would include ConocoPhillips’ (COP) 600M-barrel Willow oil project, as approved earlier this year; other companies with projects or holdings in the reserve include Repsol (OTCQX:REPYF) (OTCQX:REPYY) and Oil Search Ltd.