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. An Anchorage real estate investor and the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority still hold leases there, but industry analysts say they lack the financial power and expertise to develop the remote area on their own.
The Anchorage Daily News first reported the three firms’ decision to pull out of the refuge.
While Republicans enacted legislation in 2017 mandating two major lease sales in the refuge by the end of 2024, a coalition of Indigenous rights and environmental groups has launched a campaign to pressure corporations against investing in any developments there. The 20 million-acre preserve hosts hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl each year and provides critical habitat for the Southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears.
“This is positive news for the climate and the human rights of Indigenous people whose survival depends on a healthy, thriving calving ground for the Porcupine Caribou Herd, and further proves that the oil industry recognizes drilling on sacred lands is bad business,” the Wilderness Society’s Alaska state director, Karlin Itchoak, said in a statement.
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.
“It seems all the oil companies with leases there have concluded that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is unwise after all,” said Erik Grafe, deputy managing attorney in Earthjustice’s Alaska regional office. Grafe, who for years has been involved in litigation to block oil and gas development in the refuge, said, “We are glad that these companies may finally have seen the light, concluding that investing in Arctic oil is a bad deal on a planet that urgently needs to shift away from fossil fuels.”
A year ago the Biden administration suspended the leases that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management awarded two weeks before President Donald Trump left office, saying the agency did an “insufficient analysis” of the impact of drilling in the environmentally sensitive region.
However the state development agency, which bought seven leases covering 366,000 acres just before Trump left office, is still trying to get permits to do seismic studies and preparatory work for drilling in the refuge.