Energy

An initial assessment of the management plan shows that it conflicts with President Joe Biden’s executive order in January to reduce carbon emissions, according to a legal memorandum Interior filed Tuesday.

Hollis French wanted the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to address the question of the agency’s enforcement role over the leak, and the agency refused, saying it didn’t have jurisdiction.

A junior Australian outfit that has been exploring the North Slope for years has likely hit big in a formation that has quickly become a go-to target.

The project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska had been approved by the Trump administration and could produce more than 160,000 barrels per day.

Leaders of the state development bank approved a plan Aug. 12 to offload the foreclosed North Slope oil project where it has to date invested more than $70 million.

A federal judge issued the ruling in June, siding with Louisiana’s attorney general and officials in 12 other states, including Alaska.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority hopes to receive authorization to conduct field work that could later lead to seismic activity.

The Bureau of Land Management is moving ahead with a new environmental review of oil and gas leasing in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after the Interior secretary said she found “multiple legal deficiencies” in a prior review that provided a basis for the first lease sale on the refuge’s coastal plain earlier this year.

The filing indicates leaders of Hilcorp and the other Prudhoe owners have agreed to drill up to six wells in the Orion participating area by next spring.

Oil Search’s Keiran Wulff, who was managing development of the Pikka project, was coping with a deteriorating medical condition and also faced a whistleblower complaint, company officials said.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. said approval for the project remains “in full effect” during the supplemental review.

The resolution was approved under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn certain regulations that have been in place for just a short time.

Nearly 30 years after ExxonMobil agreed to pay $900 million to help restore resources damaged by the disastrous 1989 Prince William Sound oil spill, more money remains than was once expected.

The price for Alaska North Slope crude has been on a consistent upward trend in recent weeks and closed June 22 at $74.64 per barrel.

The Biden administration has suspended the agency’s oil and gas leases. But the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is moving ahead with plans to hire professionals to prepare a multi-year seismic plan.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority said it holds lease rights issued under the Trump administration.

The cost and logistical challenges common to rural Alaska projects, along with land ownership issues, have precluded development of geothermal energy from Makushin Volcano.

A federal judge in Louisiana ordered that plans be resumed for lease sales that were delayed for the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaska.

Small independents did the bidding in Wednesday’s oil and gas lease sale that netted the Alaska Department of Natural Resources $451,594 from eight bids.

Nearly 90 percent of Pedro Bay Corp. shareholders voted last month to let the Conservation Fund buy easements on more than 44,000 acres and make the land off limits to future development - including a road crucial to the mining proposal.