"The Interior Department tomorrow is due to auction off the last available oil and gas leases at the eastern edge of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 22.1-million-acre block of federal property on Alaska's North Slope.
Most of the leases up for sale are located in the neighborhood of ConocoPhillips Alaska's celebrated Willow oil discovery, which is estimated to hold between 400 million and 750 million barrels of recoverable oil.
Oil companies and Alaska officials have been urging federal regulators to expand the amount of NPR-A lands open for exploration. They are especially eager to get access to leases in an area just west of the Willow property, which the U.S. Geological Survey has suggested might also contain significant amounts of oil."
Margaret Kriz Hobson reports for EnergyWire December 11, 2018.
