The prospect of producing oil from the U.S. Arctic looks increasingly remote as the oil industry walks away from drilling leases. After Royal Dutch Shell pulled the plug on its drilling program in the Chukchi Sea last autumn, there had been little chance that the industry would return to the region anytime soon. But several companies officially forfeited their rights to drill in the Arctic on May 1, having declined to pay the U.S. government to renew licenses, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the environmental group Oceana. Shell, Eni, Statoil, and ConocoPhillips all decided against paying to hold onto those drilling rights in recent weeks. “Hopefully, today marks the end of the ecologically and economically risky push to drill in the Arctic Ocean,” Michael LeVine, senior regional counsel for Oceana, said in a statement emailed to UPI. Bloomberg reports that collectively […]