Once eager to drill, oil companies exit leases in Arctic refuge
By Steven Mufson and Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post.
Excerpt: Three major oil companies have given up opportunities to explore for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, after the industry and Republican politicians have spent decades working to gain access to the sensitive region. Regenerate Alaska, a division of an Australian firm and the only oil company to directly acquire a tract on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million-acre coastal plain, canceled its lease last month, after Chevron and Hilcorp, two other major oil companies, had also jettisoned their claims. The exits make it far less likely that drilling will take place soon in a vast, unspoiled landscape that has achieved iconic status among environmentalists and has been fought over for half a century. ...Five major U.S. banks — Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — and a growing list of insurance companies have stopped giving financing for the Arctic oil business. ...There are many obstacles to drilling in the Arctic refuge. There are no roads or facilities, so building the infrastructure to support oil exploration would be costly. There has long been strong opposition to drilling in the refuge, which has only intensified as climate change worsens, driven by burning of fossil fuels. The Alaskan Arctic has warmed at least three times more than other parts of the country, posing new risks to oil infrastructure on the North Slope as permafrost melts. “If you look at project proposals in other parts of the Arctic, they’re using things like chillers to freeze the permafrost so they can drill more,” said Jenny Rowland-Shea, deputy director for public lands at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “It’s not getting any colder in the Arctic. It’s only getting harder to do things like drill, and it’s a vicious cycle.” ...Some oil industry analysts see the departure from Alaska as a sign of increased fiscal discipline by oil companies as renewable energy becomes a more prominent focus for them.