Northern exposure: the US government has published terms for its sale of drilling leases in Alaska's Chukchi Sea
MMS publishes Chukchi sale guidelines
The US’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) today released initial terms for its upcoming Alaskan lease sale, which will give bidders the chance to drill for oil in the state's Chukchi Sea.
The MMS, an agency of the Department of the Interior, said its Lease Sale 193 will involve about 6100 tracts on 29 million acres extending from north of Cape Barrow to north-west of Cape Lisburne off Alaska's north-western coast. The leases lie in water between 95 and 262 feet between 25 and 200 miles (40-320 kilometres) offshore.
The MMS said it estimated the area could hold up to 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 76 trillion feet of recoverable gas reserves.
The service said the area excluded a corridor nearer the shoreline used by bowhead and beluga whales and other marine animals and birds for seasonal migrations, and where local communities practice traditional subsistence hunting.
The communities as well as environmentalists have protested plans to allow drilling in the area.
Reuters reported that the Department of the Interior had described oil and gas exploration in the area as “speculative” because no infrastructure exists to move produced oil or gas to markets.
The MMS said it would take bids in the lease sale from 6 February. The initial terms for the lease sale, which is scheduled for February, were published in today’s Federal Register of government regulations.