Alaska News

Feds launch formal review of potential Cook Inlet lease sale

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Tuesday it is launching an environmental study of possible oil and gas leasing in federal waters of Cook Inlet, a marine area that has drawn little industry interest in the past.

BOEM said it will formally start the environmental impact study with a Federal Register notice to be published Thursday. The agency said it is seeking public comments though Dec. 8 on a possible lease sale that would be held at a yet-to-be-determined date.

"We look forward to receiving thoughtful, substantial input on this EIS," Walter Cruickshank, BOEM's acting director, said in a statement. "In particular, we need to hear from residents of the communities along Cook Inlet on how the proposed leasing area is currently being used and what specific areas need extra attention."

BOEM "will use rigorous science together with traditional knowledge" and input received from the public to evaluate a possible lease sale, Cruickshank said in the statement.

No decision has been made about whether to hold a lease sale, BOEM said.

A single Cook Inlet lease sale is planned in the five-year leasing program that was approved in 2012 by then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, but the plan does not commit BOEM to hold that sale.

Even though oil and gas have been produced for decades from rigs and facilities in state waters of Cook Inlet, the federal areas of the Inlet have received scant attention.

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There are no active federal Cook Inlet leases, and the last federal Cook Inlet lease sale, held in 2004, received no bids, according to BOEM sale records.

Only about a dozen exploratory wells have been drilled in federal areas of Cook Inlet, and the last of those wells was drilled in 1984, according to BOEM well records.

Yereth Rosen

Yereth Rosen was a reporter for Alaska Dispatch News.

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