US Interior announces plans to expand drilling in Alaska

The US Department of the Interior began implementing plans to expand energy and mineral resource production in Alaska, the agency announced March 20, following through on US President Donald Trump's executive order to "unleash Alaska's extraordinary resource potential."

In what the agency dubbed an "initial suite of actions," Interior and the Bureau of Land Management said it will pursue the reopening of 82% of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to leasing and energy project development; reopen the entire Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to leasing; and convey previously withdrawn lands around the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Corridor and Dalton Highway to facilitate the Ambler Road mining project and the Alaska LNG Project.

"It's time for the US to embrace Alaska's abundant and largely untapped resources as a pathway to prosperity for the nation, including Alaskans," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. "For far too long, the federal government has created too many barriers to capitalizing on the state's energy potential. Interior is committed to recognizing the central role the State of Alaska plays in meeting our nation's energy needs, while providing tremendous economic opportunity for Alaskans."

The actions will begin a regulatory process that includes lengthy comment periods, as well as proposed and final rulemakings by Interior staff.

The Sierra Club, a leading environmental organization, criticized the move.

"Donald Trump and Elon Musk believe Big Oil CEOs, billionaires, and corporate polluters should benefit from America's public lands, not we the people," Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in a statement. "The CEOs and multibillion-dollar corporations that backed Trump get free rein to drill and pollute our iconic landscapes. Everyone else gets dirty air and polluted water."

New Alaska policy

The announcement came one day after Trump met at the White House with members of the executive committee of the American Petroleum Institute, including CEOs of large US oil majors. API has been pursuing the removal of millions of acres of public lands and waters from environmental protections granted under the administration of former US President Joe Biden.

In August 2024, the Biden administration banned drilling on 28 million acres of Alaskan federal land, declaring unlawful an order from the first Trump administration that sought to open those areas for oil, gas and mineral extraction.

That order, which also closed the Ambler Road mining project, followed an April move to restrict development in over half of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the largest federally managed tract of land in the US, which is estimated to hold 895 million barrels of oil, per a 2010 US Geological Survey.

"During the last administration, there were far more restrictions on Alaska producing oil, gas and minerals than there were on Iran," US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at CERAWeek March 10. "We've sanctioned Alaska more than we've sanctioned Iran. So that, of course, is just nuts."

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order stating that it was now the policy of the US to "fully avail itself" of Alaska's "vast lands and resources" by removing Biden-era restrictions on leasing and development.

That executive order mentioned the Alaska LNG Project by name, signaling significant administration focus on expediting permitting and construction for the $44 billion project to extract natural gas on the North Slope and pipe it to the Kenai Peninsula.

On March 20, South Korea's energy minister Ahn Duk-Geun said he would review the project before considering investment and a future agreement on US LNG exports. At CERAWeek March 14, Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy said he expected the project to begin piping gas within the next five years, and cited growing interest from South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

"Asia is a huge customer for American LNG, and to have an LNG export facility on the West Coast would be very strategic," Ellen Wald, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, said.

Industry interest

The small number of lease sales held in Alaska during the Biden administration were generally considered unsuccessful and met with minimal industry interest. The Biden Interior's congressionally mandated sale in January received no bids, a result environmentalists cast as proof of dwindling interest in politically controversial energy production in Alaska's high-profile wilderness.

Republican critics and industry groups said the available parcels were small and intentionally undesirable, and Dunleavy sued the Biden Interior Department over stipulations he said made it "impossible or impractical to develop" the 400,000 acres up for sale.

In January, API CEO Mike Sommers told Platts he believed there was long-term industry interest in Alaskan development, given a more favorable and predictable regulatory environment, as US oil majors begin to develop plans after supply in existing US oil fields like the Bakken and Permian plateaus.

"There is significant interest," Sommers said. "And I think that as some of these other basins become more mature, we know that there's a lot of resources in the state of Alaska, and we expect there's going to be a lot of interest -- if there's durable energy policy. What hurts Alaska is these swings between, are we going to produce there, or are we not going to produce there."