Alaska National Petroleum Reserve Oil And Gas Leasing And Development PDF Download

In 2007, the Department of the Interior (Interior) collected about 1 0.5 billion dollars in revenues from companies that hold federal oil and gas leases. Interior's Minerals Management Service manages offshore leases, while its Bureau of Land Management manages onshore leases and leases in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Acquiring a federal lease gives the lessee the rights to explore for and develop the oil and gas resources under the lease. Development entails many tasks, including drilling wells and building pipelines that may lead to oil and gas production. GAO agreed to (1) describe Interior's efforts to encourage development of federal oil and gas leases and compare them to states' and private landowners' efforts, (2) examine trends in leasing and factors that may affect development, and (3) describe development on a sample of leases. GAO reviewed data on about 55,000 leases and spoke to officials at Interior and in eight states with leasing experience, among others. GAO recommends that the Secretary of the Interior develop a strategy to evaluate options to encourage faster development of its oil and gas leases. Interior generally agreed with the recommendation, but questioned whether some actions could have potentially adverse impacts. GAO maintains that Interior should study these options and report on the results to Congress.