{"id":321,"date":"2026-06-05T21:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T21:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=321"},"modified":"2026-06-05T21:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T21:39:12","slug":"anwr-lease-sale-draws-3-7m-in-winning-bids-but-major-oil-and-gas-players-stay-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=321","title":{"rendered":"ANWR lease sale draws $3.7M in winning bids, but major oil and gas players stay home"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

More than $3.7 million was spent on oil and gas drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, this month. But the most recent sale failed to catch the attention of the North Slope\u2019s biggest players, observers say.<\/p>\n

Read more Alaska blood bank sees worst shortage in years<\/a><\/p>\n

ANWR is the nation\u2019s largest wildlife refuge, and a habitat for migratory birds and polar bears. The coastal plain of the refuge along the Beaufort Sea, where the tracts up for bid are located, holds the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. The area has also been touted by state officials as having the potential for billions of barrels of sellable oil, and the effort to open the region to development stretches back 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has remained a frontier area,\u201d said Kevin Pendergast, Alaska director of the Bureau of Land Management. \u201cNow we are beginning the chapter where we shift from policy to action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials with the BLM announced the results of the state\u2019s first of four planned lease sales in the region during a livestream Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Of the 58 tracts of land up for bid, there were nine bids on five tracts totalling more than 70,000 acres.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sum of all winning bids for this sale totals $3,741,528, of which 50% will go to the state of Alaska by law,\u201d Pendergast said.<\/p>\n

Three of the tracts were won by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state investment agency. The other two tracts were won by Hendrix Energy LLC, an Alaska-based oil and gas company. All five tracts are on the westernmost part of the coastal plain, surrounding existing tracts already leased by AIDEA.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/b><\/p>\n

Larry Persily, a longtime Alaska oil and gas industry observer, said the ANWR lease sale was underwhelming.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing against HEX and nothing against the employees at AIDEA,\u201d Persily said, \u201cbut you’d have to look at this and say, \u2018Well, this wasn’t much, was it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The ANWR bidding was dwarfed by an earlier oil and gas lease sale this year in the North Slope\u2019s National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to the west of the refuge. That sale brought in nearly $164 million<\/u> from major players like ConocoPhillips and Repsol, and more than half of those bids were more than $2 million.<\/p>\n

Comparatively, the largest ANWR bid in Friday\u2019s sale was for $1.7 million, highlighting what Persily describes as a lack of industry interest in the region.<\/p>\n

Read more National Park Service ranger dies after falling into a crevasse on Denali<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe players who would have the billions of dollars to explore, develop, produce are not bidding,\u201d Persily said. \u201cThey’re not at the table, they have no appetite for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first sale in the ANWR region was held in January 2021, though the sole company that bid on a lease ended up giving up the tract a year later<\/u>. A second lease sale, held in 2025, drew zero bids. Environmental groups, which have long opposed opening ANWR to oil and gas drilling, called this year\u2019s sale a flop.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis stunning yet predictable failure shows that drilling in this pristine landscape is a dead end for the fossil fuel industry,\u201d said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity. \u201cThe Trump administration needs to finally accept reality, listen to the American people and leave the Arctic Refuge alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials touted the most recent sale as a success. The president has centered \u201cunleashing Alaska\u2019s potential\u201d as part of his goal to increase energy output for the country since he returned to the White House last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis lease sale is another important step toward restoring American Energy Dominance and responsibly developing the vast resources Congress directed us to make available in the Coastal Plain,\u201d Bureau of Land Management Director Steve Pearce said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Despite the Trump administration’s fervor for drilling in ANWR, Persily said he thinks there is a major factor leading to low turnout among major players: the next administration may be less inclined to allow for development in the refuge.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much of your business, how much of your company, how much of your investment, how much of your goodwill do you want to risk that the next White House, the next presidential administration will let you keep your leases, let you get exploration permits, that you will win all the litigation that’s going to come up,\u201d Persily said.<\/p>\n

Persily said he thinks large companies will likely continue to focus their investments in other parts of the North Slope, like the NPR-A.<\/p>\n

Under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress directed the federal government to hold three more ANWR lease sales by 2035. Persily doubts there will be much growth in interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect future lease sales in ANWR will be similar to this one, except that with a new governor, maybe AIDEA won’t go throw more money after bad leases,\u201d Persily said.<\/p>\n

Read more Senate Republicans pass immigration funding after overnight vote<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe players who would have the billions of dollars to explore, develop, produce are not bidding,\u201d said longtime Alaska oil and gas industry observer Larry Persily. \u201cThey’re not at the table, they have no appetite for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nANWR lease sale draws $3.7M in winning bids, but major oil and gas players stay home - Alaska Moving Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=321\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ANWR lease sale draws $3.7M in winning bids, but major oil and gas players stay home - 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