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BOEM starts review for Cook Inlet lease sale

  • Mercados: Crude oil, Natural gas
  • 21/10/14

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) today began a process for developing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a potential oil and gas lease sale in the Cook Inlet off of the southern coast of Alaska.

BOEM said it will accept public comments on the environmental effects of the sale through 8 December and will hold public meetings in several Alaskan cities next month. The agency last November identified a potential lease area consisting of 224 blocks covering roughly 1.08mn acres of sea floor. The EIS initiated today will consider the environmental effects of a lease sale in that area.

As part of BOEM's 2012-17 Five Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, the agency included a "special interest sale" in the Cook Inlet, tentatively scheduled for 2016. The EIS is part of the agency's ongoing decision-making process on whether to offer the area up for oil and gas leases.

There are no federal leaseholds in the Cook Inlet, but there are a number of oil and gas exploration platforms in operation in state-managed waters. The EIS would only apply to a lease sale in the 2012-17 five year plan, though BOEM said the completed EIS would also inform the decision of whether to include the Cook Inlet in the 2017-22 five year plan, which the agency is considering.

The area has been the subject of some controversy when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2010 designated a third of the Inlet as critical habitat for Beluga whales. Governor Sean Parnell (R) said the designation was "unnecessarily broad" and ignored state conservation efforts already in place.

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