March 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Wednesday held its most successful sale ever of oil and gas drilling rights in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, attracting $163 million in winning bids from industry players including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Repsol and Shell.
The sale appeared to show pent-up demand from drillers for acreage in the reserve after more than six years without a federal oil and gas auction. Though it has high development potential, interest in the region has waned in recent years due to the high cost of drilling in the remote area and risks from environmental litigation.
“The results of today’s sale are historic,” Bureau of Land Management Alaska State Director Kevin Pendergast said after announcing the preliminary results of the livestreamed auction. “It makes clear that for the NPR-A, despite all the successes to date, the best days are still ahead.”
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management received 430 bids on about 200 of the 600 tracts offered, according to the preliminary tally.
The industry bid on 1.3 million acres of the 5.5 million acres (2.2 million hectares) offered, according to Pendergast.
Repsol and Shell bid jointly on many of the tracts, winning several of them. Other top winners included ConocoPhillips, North Slope Exploration LLC and ExxonMobil.
Company officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
BLM will publish final sale statistics on its website.
The sale was the first of at least five mandated by President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill, which he signed into law last year. His administration has sought to expand domestic oil and gas production and reverse Biden-era restrictions on drilling in the Alaska reserve.
The NPR-A, as the 23-million-acre reserve is known, was designated for oil and gas exploration in the 1970s to address energy shortages. It is estimated to hold 8.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 25 trillion feet of recoverable natural gas.
The last NPR-A lease sale, in 2019, attracted $11.3 million in bids on 1.05 million acres.
Alaska state officials and some native groups support oil and gas drilling because it contributes to tax revenue and creates jobs. Environmentalists argue oil and gas development destroys habitats for species such as polar bears and caribou.
(Reporting by Nichola GroomEditing by Rod Nickel and Bill Berkrot)
