As much as 4.5 million acres of drilling leases in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska will be auctioned off by the federal government on Nov. 7.
The sale will be the second for the Bureau of Land Management to hold in Anchorage, Ala., during the past 12 months, and it will include 400 tracts of land. It will be the eighth oil and gas lease sale in the Alaskan reserve since 1999.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazarsaid in a statement that that resources in the reserve are essential to meeting the nation’s energy demands, enhancing domestic energy production and ultimately decreasing dependency on foreign oil sources.
To date, only exploratory drilling has taken place in the reserve. However, permits have been issued to Houston’sConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) to allow future production of oil and gas in the area. Currently, there are 186 leases authorized for a total of more than 1.48 million acres within the reserve’s planning areas.
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