US trims back its plans for Alaskan acreage offer

Talks: US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at the Arctic Energy forum in Norway this week

REUTERS/SCANPIX

By ANTHONY GUEGEL Houston

 28 June 2012 22:59 GMT

THE US is taking portions of the Alaskan Beaufort and Chukchi seas off the licensing table as the Department of the Interior prepares to launch its proposed 2012-2017 federal leasing programme by 1 July.

US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said the final leasing plan, to be released in the “coming days”, will include two Alaskan lease sales — one in Chukchi Sea in 2016 and one in Beaufort Sea in 2017.

However, a section in Beaufort Sea north of Barrow and a 25-mile (40 kilometre) wide buffer off the coast in the Chukchi Sea will not be available for leasing.

Salazar said both areas have “high subsistence values” to native Alaskans who hunt for whale there.

Those areas have not been historically attractive to the oil…

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