White House  removes 43,000 sq. miles and 3 Tcf of natural gas potential from offshore Alaska

On Nov. 9, the president signed an executive order creating the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area.

“This area, encompassing 112,300 square miles, represents a hugely productive, high-latitude ocean ecosystem and supports one of the largest seasonal marine mammal migrations in the world, including thousands of bowhead and beluga whales, hundreds of thousands of walruses and ice seals, and millions of migratory birds,” the White House said in its announcement.

The Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area is delineated for the purpose of focusing a locally-tailored collection of protections related to oil and gas, shipping, and fishing.

Norton Basin Planning Area and parts of St. Matthew-Hall are withdrawn from federal OCS leasing

President Withdraws More of Alaska from Future Oil and Gas Production

Source: BOEM

“Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the president has withdrawn Norton Basin planning area and portions of the St. Matthew-Hall planning area from future oil and gas leasing to further protect the regional ecosystem and coastal communities.  The five year leasing plans issued by the Department of the Interior do not include plans for leasing in the withdrawn areas, so there will not need to be changes to those plans to reflect the withdrawal.  The total area withdrawn from leasing through this executive order is 40,300 square miles,” the White House said.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management published a “Norton Basin Planning Area (Alaska) – Province Summary 2006 Oil and Gas Assessment” available here. Below are the government’s assessments of potential resources in place in the Norton Planning Area from its 2006 study, including its mean estimate of 3.058 Tcf of natural gas.

President Withdraws More of Alaska from Future Oil and Gas Production

Source: BOEM

President Withdraws More of Alaska from Future Oil and Gas Production

Source: BOEM

Friday’s executive order comes on the heels of the Department of Interior’s Federal OCS lease schedule announced a month ago which excluded Alaska’s Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea from 2017-2022 federal lease sales.


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