US gets 1 bid for oil and gas lease in Alaska’s Cook Inlet

By AUDREY McAVOY

The U.S. government on Friday said it received on bid for the right to drill offshore for oil and gas in Alaska’s Cook Inlet near habitat for bears, salmon, humpback whales and endangered beluga whales.

Hilcorp Alaska LLC submitted the sole bid — $63,983 for an area covering 2,304 hectares or 5,693 acres.

The company is a unit of Hilcorp, which is the largest privately held oil and gas exploration and production company in the United States. It already has leases to drill for oil and gas in onshore areas of Cook Inlet, which stretches from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which conducted the sale via livestream, was offering leases for 193 blocks totaling some 958,000 acres (388,000 hectares) but received just one bid for one block.

The U.S. Interior Department in May said it would not move forward with the Cook Inlet lease sale due to a “lack of industry interest.” But over the summer, Congress passed legislation that called for a Cook Inlet lease sale by year’s end and two Gulf of Mexico lease sales next year. The provisions were part of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sprawling package that also included major investments to fight climate change.