US to offer minimum acreage required at Alaska oil and gas auction

Published at: Dec 11 2024 - 22:10 / Updated at: Dec 11 2024 - 22:10

The Biden administration will offer oil and gas drilling leases in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) at a sale on January 9th, the U.S. Interior Department said on Monday.

That is reported by Reuters.

The agency will auction off 400,000 acres (161,874 hectares) to drillers, the minimum required by a law mandating the sale.

ANWR is a 19 million-acre refuge for species, including polar bears and Porcupine caribou. The wild landscape lacks roads and public facilities, but its 1.6 million-acre coastal area along the Beaufort Sea is estimated to have up to 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

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