Comments due Oct. 23 on Alaska's 2027 Cook Inlet and Alaska Peninsula oil and gas lease sales

The state plans to offer oil and gas leases across millions of acres in Cook Inlet and on the Alaska Peninsula next spring. Anyone who wants a say, and the right to challenge the sales later, needs to send written comments by 5 pm Oct. 23.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas opened the comment period Sept. 23. Both sales are tentatively scheduled for spring 2027.

The Cook Inlet sale area covers about 3.3 million acres, roughly 1.5 million onshore and 1.8 million offshore, in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the Municipality of Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula Borough. The Alaska Peninsula area covers about 5 million acres, 3.3 million onshore and 1.7 million offshore, in the Lake and Peninsula, Bristol Bay and Aleutians East boroughs and the Dillingham Census Area.

Under state law, only people who comment now and are affected by the state's final decision can later ask the department's commissioner to reconsider it and then appeal to Superior Court.

Each state lease sale rests on a "best interest finding," a decision covering 10 years that says leasing the area serves the state and sets the environmental and other rules companies must follow. Every year before a sale, the state must ask for new information and then either update the finding or declare that nothing substantial has changed. The Cook Inlet finding dates to 2018 and was last updated in 2019. The Alaska Peninsula finding was issued in 2023 and hasn't been updated.

This time, the division is asking for research from the past year on subsistence, fish and wildlife habitat, cultural resources and the sales' effects on state finances.

The Cook Inlet sale comes as Southcentral Alaska depends on the basin's shrinking natural gas supply. A 2022 state study found Cook Inlet gas had the potential to fully meet expected demand only until 2026 or 2027. At a joint House and Senate Resources committee meeting Sept. 10, Hilcorp Alaska Senior Vice President Luke Saugier said new drilling was economic only because of what he called creative new leasing terms from the department.

In a separate federal process for a Lower Cook Inlet lease sale, people who commented to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management raised concerns about environmental effects, fisheries and tribal subsistence, and some called for a permanent moratorium on leasing.

Comments can be emailed to [email protected], faxed to 907-269-8938 or mailed to the Division of Oil and Gas.