Trump is opening Alaska's wilderness to the oil business, but no one is buying
The Trump administration announced this week it would issue decades-long leases in the massive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), potentially holding its first auctions by the end of the year.
It’s not clear anyone will take them up on the offer.
For quite some time, oil and gas companies (and their financers) have been running in the other direction. Major banks have already refused to lend to projects that would drill in the 19.6-million-acre Alaskan preserve known as the “last great wilderness.” Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo had all sworn off financing oil development in the tundra’s refuge.
And few oil firms appear ready to take out loans, in any case. Last year, BP sold off its Alaska operations (including leasing rights in a private inholding of ANWR). Anadarko, Pioneer Natural Resources, and Marathon Oil have hocked their holdings. Shell left Alaska without bothering to sell its assets. That’s left two companies, ConocoPhillips and Hilcorp, controlling 72% of Alaska’s oil production (the rest are owned by ExxonMobil and a few smaller firms).
For all Donald Trump’s talk of “energy dominance,” the future of ANWR may be out of his hands. The hesitancy to drill new wells in Alaska’s Arctic is driven in part by a warming world: The state is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the nation, and its melting permafrost wreaks havoc on drilling infrastructure. But it has much more to do with the dire economics of drilling for expensive oil in remote locations.
https://qz.com/1893048/why-most-oil-companies-wont-drill-in-alaskas-arctic-refuge/?utm_source=YPL
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