The first oil and gas lease sale held in years in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska was touted by officials Wednesday as the strongest to date, drawing hundreds of bids and interest from major oil companies despite pending legal challenges from environmentalists and some Indigenous groups.
It was the first sale in the reserve since 2019 and the first under a law passed by Congress last year calling for at least five lease sales there over a 10-year period, amid a renewed push by the Trump administration to expand oil and gas development in Alaska. The U.S. Department of Interior said 11 companies submitted bids on 187 tracts covering 1.3 million acres (526,000 hectares). The sale offered 625 tracts over about 5.5 million acres (2.2 million hectares).
