Tag Archives: federal oil and gas leases

Good News For Alaska

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On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about oil and gas lease sales in Alaska.

The article reports:

The Department of Interior held an oil and gas lease sale this week for the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska (NPR-A). It was by every measure a huge success. The sale resulted in 187 leases and generated $163 million. 

The sale brought in some of the big players in oil and gas, including Shell, Exxon, and ConocoPhillips. It signaled a lot of interest from the industry in oil and gas development on Alaska’s North Slope.

It was a big win for Trump’s unleashing American energy policy, but it’s also a win for the North Slope Iñupiat Alaska natives.

Resource development provides over 95% of the North Slope’s tax revenue, which supports essential services in the remote region, including schools, health clinics, water and sewer systems, and wildlife management. 

The Biden administration would often say it was listening to indigenous voices, but when those voices collided with the administration’s climate goals, Native Americans took a back seat. Former President Joe Biden passed regulation after regulation restricting resource development, including oil, gas, and mining.

The Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat (VOICE), a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that advocates for the Arctic Slope communities, spent years trying to get a meeting with Deb Haaland, Biden’s interior secretary. She finally sat down with them in the summer of 2024. 

“Things have changed quite a bit. And I think it’s a testament to our membership, our advocacy and our constant, consistent messaging, no matter who’s in office,” since the VOICE was founded in 2015, Nagruk Harcharek, president of VOICE, told Just the News. 

The article concludes:

One of the few projects that was allowed to move forward under the Biden administration was ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project, which is expected to produce 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak. Harcharek said representatives of the company had to meet with the North Slope Borough and its constituents in the assembly as part of its local permitting process. Before it could move forward, the borough had to sign off and issue a permit for it. 

As projects move forward to develop the acreage sold in the lease sale this week, as well as those in the future, the industry will need to work with the boroughs as part of the permitting process for each project. Harcharek said the members of VOICE are finally getting a seat at the table — not only in allowing resource development but also in how it’s done. 

“We have a say. When the time comes and these proposals move forward, they will have to go in front of the North Slope boroughs as well as the other organizations and elected leadership on the North Slope to be able to sell them and get them to move forward,” he said. 

Delta Owns An Oil Refinery!?!?

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about the current energy problems in America (and worldwide).

The article quotes The Washington Post:

The country is down to 25 days of diesel supply with stockpiles at their lowest level for this time of year in records going back to 1993. In the Northeast, where more people burn fuel for home heating than anywhere else in the country, inventories are a third of their typical levels heading into winter. National Economic Council Director Brian Deese called the levels “unacceptably low.” By late October, diesel prices had risen for more than two weeks to 50% above where they were a year ago.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Biden administration has leased fewer acres for oil-and-gas drilling offshore and on federal land than any other administration in its early stages dating back to the end of World War II, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

The article includes the following chart:

The article at Hot Air reports:

Where does Delta come into all this, after the commodities and doom and gloom lecture? That’s kind of interesting, too. At the top of the post, where I linked to those three PA refineries being closed in 2012? One of them was the Trainer facility, and it was given an EPA reprieve, of all things. CONOCO-Phillips still wanted to unload it, and Delta Airlines bought it as a hedge against oil prices and jet fuel shortages. They lost their butt owning it for years – as a small refinery fighting the EPA mandates tooth and nail didn’t help – and repeatedly tried to unload it, but, HEY! There’s been a sudden turnaround. Things are looking rosy and they are looking prescient. From April:

Delta will see a benefit of 20 cents per gallon of jet fuel from its refinery, which acts as a hedge against the spike in fuel. In particular, the refinery supplies fuel for Delta’s York operations, but Chief Financial Officer Daniel Janki said Monroe Energy’s output acts as a 40-50 percent fuel hedge across Delta’s network. In the first quarter, the refinery knocked about 7 cents off each gallon of jet fuel Delta consumed.

When Delta first bought the Trainer, Pa., refinery from Conoco Philips — now Philips 66 — in 2012, analyst opinions were mixed. Some argued it was a stroke of genius on the airline’s part, while others said it was too far afield from Delta’s core operations to make sense for an airline with no experience in selling or marketing petroleum products. The years since have been up and down for the refinery but now, with oil prices spiraling up in the wake of the Ukraine war, the refinery is proving its worth.

The refinery generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first quarter, compared with $48 million in the same quarter in 2019, Delta said in its first-quarter results. About 80 percent of its output is diesel and gasoline, prices of which have surged. “Our Monroe refinery provides a unique benefit, acting as a partial hedge to elevated cracks,” Janki said. “This is especially true with New York Harbor Jet cracks, where our production at Monroe provides 100 percent offset.”

It really is time to rediscover American energy independence!

 

Almost Good News

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On Friday, The Conservative Treehouse reported that the Biden administration has authorized new oil and gas leases on limited federal land.

The article reports:

Energy development companies had identified 744,000 acres of federal land which could yield significant returns for oil and gas extraction.  Today the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) authorized leases for 173 parcels on 144,000 acres; approximately 80% less than was identified by energy companies.  [BLM Press Release Here]

…The new leases are mostly for areas where already existing oil and gas exploration is taking place, and the Biden administration has raised the federal royalty charges from 12.5% to a new 18.75%. In order to keep upward pressure on gasoline prices, Green New Deal national target price $7/gal, the new leases will not be available until later this year.

Two things to consider here. Any movement in the way of helping America to produce energy can be quickly reduced after the mid-term elections. The increase in federal royalty charges may make the land less attractive for drilling.

This is a political move by the Biden administration to give the impression he cares about American energy production. He doesn’t. He is being controlled by the extreme environmentalists. The only way to get back to energy independence is to elect people to Congress who will make laws to protect the energy independence of America.

Working Hard To Make A Bad Situation Worse

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On Thursday, The Western Journal posted an article about the Biden administration’s energy policy.

The article reports:

While oil prices rise due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration is delaying new federal oil and gas leases.

This comes in the midst of rising frustration from Americans over increasing gas prices. In the U.S., gas prices are averaging more than $3.50 per gallon, NPR reported. These are the highest averages seen since 2014.

The halt in federal oil and gas leases is Biden’s response to a court ruling that blocked the administration’s attempt to emphasize potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for polluting industries, the Associated Press reported.

I don’t claim to have inside information, but I can tell you what is going to happen next (actually, it’s already happening). President Biden will blame the rapidly rising gasoline prices on the war in Ukraine. While that is partially true, it does not take into account the fact that if America were still energy independent, the price of oil would not be as volatile as it is. Also, the amount of money coming into the U.S. Treasury due to the increased price of oil and increased American drilling would be helpful to the American economy. The President’s policy of limiting American oil production during a time of international uncertainty hurts all Americans.

The article concludes:

It’s predictable that Biden would want to halt domestic drilling on federal lands, since he promised to fight climate change and leasing federal lands for fossil fuel development would conflict with that policy.

“These fossil fuel projects are incompatible with Biden’s goal of avoiding 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming and they need to be canceled, as Biden promised to do,” Taylor McKinnon from the Center for Biological Diversity said, the AP reported.

However, Biden is also fully aware of how the Russia-Ukraine crisis is hurting oil prices.

In the midst of a fluctuating oil market that is directly hurting American pockets, Biden is halting federal drilling leases, which hurts American energy independence and keeps our gas prices tied to international tensions.