Nearly 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska are available for lease sale or have been sold to oil companies, most notably ConocoPhillips (COP).
A judge has temporarily halted the project to lease more than 1 million acres due to a lawsuit filed by environmentalists. The lawsuit names the Department of the Interior, the state of Alaska and oil companies and hopes to protect 600,000 acres of the 23-million acre reserve from exploratory drilling, according to this MSNBC.com report.
ConocoPhillips has its eye on the contested area, which holds a potential 2 billion barrels of oil beneath the permafrost near Lake Teshekpuk.
Know More about issues that face big business at AnalyzeThisBusiness.com.
Comment Preview