By Gwladys Fouche, Reuters

OSLO — NORWAY’S SUPREME Court ruled on Monday that EU ships cannot fish for snow crab off the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic in a case also deciding who has the right to explore for oil and minerals in the region.

At stake was whether EU vessels had the right to catch snow crab, whose meat is considered a delicacy by gourmets in Japan and South Korea, in the same way as Norwegian vessels did.

But what is valid for the snow crab, a sedentary species living on the seabed, is also valid for oil, minerals and other resources, the Supreme Court ruled in a 2019 case.

A Latvian fisheries company, SIA North Star, applied to Norway, a non-EU country, in 2019 for a fishing licence to catch the species, but was turned down on the basis that only Norwegian vessels can.

SIA North Star argued it had that right under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, which grants Norway sovereignty over the archipelago — on the condition that other signatories have access to its territorial waters.

“The company does not have the right to catch snow crab on the continental shelf outside Svalbard,” the Supreme Court said in its verdict, which was unanimous.

If SIA North Star had won that right, it would have meant other states than Norway would have had the right of access to the natural resources on the continental shelf around Svalbard.

While the legal recourse for the fisheries company are now over, a state may bring a case against Norway, said Øystein Jensen, a professor of international law at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo.

“It will continue as an international legal dispute in the sense that other states may not necessarily accept this as the final solution of this issue,” Mr Jensen told Reuters. “It is a domestic court decision, (so) an international court can also hear this question at a later stage.”

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik, Louise Heavens and Angus MacSwan)

FURTHER READING
• 🇺🇸 Blame ‘borealisation’ for the disaster befalling the snow crab
• 🇳🇴 Norway’s Supreme Court hears Arctic snow crab case affecting oil, minerals
• 🇳🇴 How a standoff over cod could test the boundaries of the Svalbard Treaty
• 🇳🇴 Svalbard Treaty doesn’t apply beyond coastal waters, signals Norwegian high-court ruling in snow crab case
• 🇪🇺 🇳🇴 EU grants more licenses in contested snow crab fisheries near Svalbard

By Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon

ANCHORAGE — A GIANT oil-development project just approved by the Biden administration and celebrated by Alaska state leaders is expected to cost the state treasury more than it would raise in the early years.

The Willow project, estimated to hold 600 million barrels of recoverable oil, would spur a cumulative loss of more than $1 billion (€940 million) in oil-production tax revenue over about 10 years, according to a state Department of Revenue analysis. That is because the billions of dollars that ConocoPhillips is expected to spend building Willow will be used to offset the tax bills elsewhere from production elsewhere on the North Slope, according to the analysis, issued on 28 February.

Willow would become cash-positive to the state in the 2035 fiscal year and, through the 2050s, generate $5.4 billion in state revenues over its lifetime, according to the analysis.

Willow would be the western-most producing North Slope oil field if developed and is located on federal territory, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. That has profound implications for expected state revenues. While oil production on state land generates royalty revenues that go into the state’s general fund, royalties from oil production within NPR-A are effectively split between the federal government and the local communities on the North Slope. The royalty revenues intended for communities are placed into the state-administered National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska Impact Mitigation Grant Program, then distributed for specific projects.

Through that program and through other avenues, communities on the North Slope are poised to reap financial benefits from Willow, money that is vitally important, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, an organisation generally supportive of oil development.

In a statement released after the Biden administration announced its approval, Mr Harcharek called Willow “a new opportunity to ensure a viable future for our communities, creating generational economic stability for our people and advancing our self-determination”.

Willow is expected to produce more than $1 billion in property-tax revenues to the North Slope Borough and add $2.5 billion to the NPR-A Impact Mitigation Grant Program, “supporting social services, youth programs, civic facilities and more throughout our communities”, Mr Harcharek said.

The expected state revenue loss in the first years of Willow’s life was no secret to lawmakers. In November of 2018, the administration of former governor Bill Walker released an analysis to legislators that calculated that, over 10 years, the state would lose over $1.64 billion through development of Willow and other projects in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

The 2018 report used some different parameters and assumptions. In addition to anticipated effects on state revenue of Willow development, it factored in the effects of two smaller oil projects: Greater Mooses Tooth 1, which started production that year; and Greater Mooses Tooth 2, which started production in late 2021. It assumed an oil price of $75 a barrel, though it considered some other prices. And it assumed that Willow production would start in 2024, much earlier than is now expected.

Alaska leaders in recent days have acknowledged Willow’s initial negative fiscal impacts to the state but said other positive economic impacts will flow from the project.

“You know, this is on federal land, so you’re not going to see the revenue potential that you would see on state land,” Mike Dunleavy, Alaska’s Republican governor, said in a news conference on Monday.

Still, there will be jobs for the workers building and operating Willow, he said. And more oil into the Trans Alaska Pipeline System means that the 1,300km system’s life “will be extended for a certain period of time”, he said. That could make other oil development more likely, arresting or even reversing the North Slope’s long-term production decline, he said. “The hope is that we continue to find plays, we continue to develop those plays. And we continue to, at the very least maintain, if not increase,” he said.

In a news conference on Tuesday, Cathy Giessel, who leads the majority Republicans in the state senate, said the tax structure that is poised to produce several years of losses to the state is fair to industry.

“You take the risk of investing in this hugely expensive process of drilling wells, you need to be able to recover your costs before we start taxing you,” she said. It’s also fair for the state to have its revenues deferred, she reckoned.

“That’s part of the cost of doing business, in my perspective,” she said.

And the money going to North Slope communities is an important positive benefit for the state, she said.

However, to Bill Wielechowski, a Democratic senator, the negative cash flow shows a flaw in the state’s tax system.

“We’re basically picking up a huge chunk of the cost and others will be getting the benefits when this is all said and done,” he said in an interview. “The state will be subsidising a huge part of this project.”

That situation would have been remedied if voters in 2020 had passed an initiative changing the state’s oil production tax structure, according to Mr Wielechowski. Under provisions of the initiative, he said, “you could just ring-fence it,” meaning that Willow costs could not be used to offset taxes on oil production elsewhere. “It’s an easy fix, actually,” he said.

Alaska voters rejected the initiative, with about 58% voting against it.

Mr Wielechowski, who along with Ms Giessel is a member of the bipartisan Senate majority, said he is happy that the Biden administration approved Willow. But he said the current situation might spur another look at oil-production tax changes.

FURTHER READING

• Green groups sue Biden administration over Willow oil project
• Analysis: Legal challenges could delay Alaska’s Willow oil project
• Biden administration approves massive Willow oil project in Alaska
• Biden issues limits on oil drilling in Alaska, Arctic Ocean
• Voice the Arctic Iñupiat on latest Willow Project reports
• A willow the greens can do without
• Alaska’s DC reps lobby Biden to approve Willow oil and gas project
• As a new review gets underway, the future of a huge Arctic Alaska oil project is uncertain
• Biden administration backs smaller version of ConocoPhillips project
• A US federal judge throws out the approval of a major new oil project in Alaska’s Arctic
• Appeals court halts construction at ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in Alaska’s Arctic 

Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: [email protected]. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter.

By Elías Thorsson

REYKJAVÍK — ICELAND WILL implement a new system for processing work permits for people from outside the European Economic Area, according to that country’s prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir. The goal of the four-point plan unveilled last week is to make the country a more attractive destination for foreign workers.

The measure, according to Ms Jakobsdóttir, is necessary because Iceland lags well behind  its peers when it comes to attracting foreign workers and helping immigrants integrate. The current application process is bureaucratic and subject to arbitrary decision making,

Iceland’s economy is heavily dependent on foreign labour; according to figures from Hagstofa Íslands, the office of statistics, 16% of people living in Iceland in 2022 were not born there. The vast majority of foreigners were from the EEA (which, in addition to Iceland, is comprised of the countries of the EU, Liechtenstein and Norway) but it can be difficult for people from the rest of the world to obtain working papers.

In addition to easing some of the rules for citizens countries outside the EEA and making it easier to apply, the government’s proposal calls for establishing a system to forecast future demand for foreign workers and establishing visa agreements with more countries.

Ms Jakobsdóttir reckoned the plan will be beneficial to both the labor market and applicants themselves.

“These changes mark a great shift in the labor market,” she said. “Ahead lies a lot of work and dialogue with relevant actors in the economy, but the government’s vision is clear. The system must be more fair, transparent and efficient to people from outside the EEA.”

During the past decade, Iceland’s population grew about 15%, adding an additional 56,440 people. Around 60% of the increase was due to immigration.

FURTHER READING

• A new ‘fast-track’ scheme will make it easier for Greenland firms to hire foreign labor
• Nunavut’s population could reach 54,000 by 2043, StatCan says
• Almost 11,000 people moved to Iceland last year
• Syrian refugees find a warm welcome and a new home in Iceland

By Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon 

ALASKA’S WORKING-AGE population peaked 10 years ago, and the rate of loss since then has been nearly the highest among all US states, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

The details are described in the lead article in the March issue of Alaska Economic Trends, the monthly magazine produced by the department’s research and analysis section.

The number of Alaskans between 18 and 64 years old reached its peak in 2013 at 479,000 but by 2022 had fallen to 449,000, said the article, written by Eric Sandberg, a state demographer. Alaska’s 5.4% loss in working-age adults from 2013 to 2021 is eclipsed only by the 8% loss in West Virginia and the 6% loss in Wyoming, the article said.

There are three reasons for Alaska’s decline, according to the article: outmigration, the ageing nature of Alaska’s population and the large number of deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alaska has had 10 consecutive years of more people leaving the state than moving into it, the longest stretch since such records began after the second world war.

Alaska ageing is driven in large part by the movement of the Baby Boom generation — which dominated the working-age population in 1990 — into retirement, the article said. In 2020, for the first time, there were more Alaskans moving into retirement age than moving into adulthood, it said.

Death has been the biggest factor in the population decline of working-age Alaskans over the past two years, the article said.

Not all of the deaths in those pandemic years were specifically from Covid-19, but the total number of deaths for the age group was about 40% higher than in pre-pandemic years, the article said.

Deaths in Alaska’s working-age population totalled 2,000 in 2021 and 2,400 last year, the article said. For context, the total decline in the 18-to-64-year-old population, from all causes, was 4,300 from 2021 to 2022, the article said.

Alaska’s working-age population is likely to keep declining through 2030, the article concludes, and prospects for returning to 2013 peaks appear dim. “Unless the state’s net migration rate is higher in the next 30 years than the previous 30, Alaska will likely struggle in the long term to regain its peak 2013 working-age population,” the article concluded.

FURTHER READING
• The Arctic’s future population will likely be more urban, more aged — and only slightly bigger
• Greenland lawmakers grapple with how far to go to save the country’s hamlets
• How online learning is an opportunity for the Arctic
•The settlements of Greenland’s eastern coast are trapped in a decimating population slide
• A strategy to double Nuuk’s population begins with a new housing district
• Remote settlements in Greenland have a future, but they cannot make it alone

Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: [email protected]. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter.

By Saara-Maria Salonen, Barents Observer

RESIDENTS OF THE small town of Inari, n Finnish Lapland, have had to get accustomed to some changes to their daily lives this winter. With film-production companies flocking to the area, there are many unfamiliar faces around in addition to the regular flow of tourists. Some might get lucky enough to spot international stars, while others might get a chance to appear as film extras or even secure jobs in an industry that traditionally is located in the south.

In recent years, Finnish Lapland has become increasingly attractive to foreign film producers. Currently there are a number of large projects filming in Lapland: the third season of Arctic Circle, of international fame, is being filmed in Inari council while Critical Point, a new series, is filming in Ylitornio. In addition, filming of Constellation, an Apple TV’s series, recently wrapped up filming in Inari, bringing international stars to the small town.

The Barents Observer spoke with Ida Tirkkonen, the head of the Finnish Lapland Film Commission, to find out what makes Finnish Lapland so appealing. The three main selling points, she says, are “accessible nature, distinct seasons and unique light conditions”. In addition, five international airports makes the area easy to access from abroad.

These are just some of the points the Film Commission advertises as it works to promote the area as a filming location, and helps production teams to get the best possible experience filming in Lapland.

Ms Tirkkonen (pictured) reckons that the film industry will only continue to grow in the future.  Constellation is, she believes, a good example of how large, international productions can be organised in the area with ease.

“The Arctic region with functional services and infrastructure is a combination that works well,” she says.

And if the predictions of the film industry’s future are true, it will have a large impact on the area.

“The productions use local services such as accommodation, restaurants, transportation, programme services and equipment rentals,” Ms Tirkkonen says.

The already busy tourism area is getting considerably busier with film crews arriving, and that has benefitted local businesses.

“Constellation, for example, used €1.7 million in the area,” Ms Tirkkonen says.

In addition, the productions hire locals, allowing many professionals and those starting out in the film industry to work in Lapland.

Ms Tirkkonen points out that these productions are giving more visibility to the Arctic region, while the development of the audio-visual industry in the North will employ the professionals who already live in the area. Traditionally, the film industry hires people from outside the region and expanding film shoots in Lapland will be a welcome change to the film professionals of Lapland.

FURTHER READING

• What we can learn from Oscar-nominated Ivalu
• This fund aims to help indigenous filmmakers tell their own stories about the Arctic
• How a collaboration with Disney shaped the way Sámi cultural details were portrayed in Frozen 2
• Coming soon: a Sámi version of Disney’s ‘Frozen’ sequel
• Netflix series needs stronger acknowledgement of Inuit inspiration, says Yup’ik student
• Northern films to feature at German festival

Located in Kirkenes, Norway, just a few kilometres from the borders to Russia and Finland, the Barents Observer is dedicated to cross-border journalism in Scandinavia, Russia and the wider Arctic. As a non-profit stock company that is fully own by its reporters, its editoral decisions are free of regional, national or private-sector influence. It has been a partner to ABJ and its predecessors since 2016.

By Victoria Waldersee, Reuters

WOLFSBURG — VOLKSWAGEN’S BATTERY needs are covered until 2028 by its three confirmed factories in Europe — the Salzgitter plant in Germany, Northvolt’s plant in Sweden and a planned plant in Valencia — board member Thomas Schmall said on Monday.

The carmaker is still targeting 240 gigawatt hours of battery cell production capacity in Europe but could do this with fewer than the originally planned six plants, Mr Schmall said.

“We stick to the 240 gigawatt hours. Whether we need five or six plants depends on the incentive strategy of the countries … this is not decided yet,” he added.

The executive said he expects demand for between 60 and 100 gigawatt hours of capacity in North America but did not give details on how much of this capacity will be provided by Volkswagen-owned plants.

It was a misunderstanding that announcements of new plants in North America meant that the carmaker would do less in Europe, Mr Schmall said, adding it was simply waiting to see what Europe had to offer as a response to the US Inflation Reduction Act.

The Valencia plant, confirmed last year, is due to begin production in 2026. Volkswagen does not need to start construction of a new plant in Europe until 2025, Mr Schmall said, adding a decision on the next location could be made sooner if a similar tailwind to the IRA materialised in Europe.

The carmaker was standardising the structure of its factories and batteries, but the chemistry of the battery would differ for different models, Mr Schmall said: batteries for entry-level models will use iron phosphate, while medium-level models will have high manganese content and top models increased silicon content.

With its PowerCo battery unit, Volkswagen wanted to become a significant player but not the only player in the battery space, Mr Schmall added, highlighting that 95% of the battery market is dominated by Asian players.

(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; editing by Miranda Murray, Kirsten Donovan)

FURTHER READING

• Battery start-up Freyr accelerates US plans on IRA support
• Green value chains in focus at first summit during Swedish EU presidency
• Northern Sweden’s Northvolt battery plant starts production
• Volkswagen invests in a north Sweden wind farm
• Northern Norway battery maker plans new factory, New York stock listing
• A second fossil-free steel mill is planned for northern Sweden
• A Swedish renewable-powered battery plant in northern Sweden receives another major investment

By James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

A NINE-YEAR-OLD DISPUTE between the state of Alaska and the federal government over the western border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge won’t be resolved anytime soon.

On Thursday, US District Court Judge Sharon Gleason declined to issue a verdict on the dispute, and instead referred it back to a federal appeals board that has already considered the topic once before.

At stake are 20,000 acres of potentially oil-rich North Slope land between the Canning River and the Staines River on the North Slope.

Since 2014, the state has sought ownership of the land in order to open it for oil drilling and development. The federal government would like to preserve the land from that development.

The dispute is separate from the much larger argument about whether drilling should take placae within the wildlife refuge.a

Since the 1950s, the western boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — and before it, the Arctic National Wildlife Range — has been defined as “the extreme west bank of the Canning River”.

The problem is that there are two different definitions of where the Canning River is. The federal government argues that decades-old maps and co-ordinates show the Staines River was defined as the boundary.

At its delta, where a river flows into a lake or sea, it can break into several “distributaries”.

The Canning River flows into the Beaufort Sea, and the Staines is the westernmost distributary, a branch that flows away from the main channel.

The state argues that the real boundary is farther east, along what maps label as the Canning River proper.

In 2016, the Bureau of Land Management rejected the state’s request to take ownership of the land between the two rivers. The state appealed that decision to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, which ruled in favour of the BLM in 2020.

Last year, the state appealed the board’s decision by filing suit in Alaska District Court, which put the issue in front of Justice Gleason. During court proceedings, the state presented 20 maps from 1951 that had not been previously considered by the land appeals board.

On Thursday, Ms Gleason ruled that evidence was significant enough that the board should look at the issue again, and she remanded the case back to the board.

Ms Gleason kept jurisdiction over the case, meaning legal proceedings could resume if the board again rules against the state.

FURTHER READING

• An environmental group plans to sue over the impact to polar bears from a new Alaska oil project
• Suddenly, new investment in Arctic Alaska oil looks very unlikely
• A new lawsuit over Arctic refuge oil cites transboundary environmental effects
• Alaska agency devotes $20 million to bid in controversial Arctic refuge lease sale

Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: [email protected]. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter.

The project, equal to 1% of global natural-gas demand, should be launched by 2030 when potential buyers see a shortage coming up

By Katya Golubkova, Reuters

TOKYO — QILAK LNG plans to invest $5 billion (€4.75 billion) in a proposed liquefied-natural-gas facility in Alaska’s North Slope to compete with Russia’s Yamal project for Asian customers towards the end of this decade, its chief executive said.

Major LNG importers such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are rethinking Russian supplies after sanctions on Moscow after it invaded Ukraine and more natural gas could be needed to produce lower-emission and alternative fuels as countries try to reduce their carbon emissions.

Qilak is 3,700km closer to Asian markets than its biggest competitor, the Novatek-led Yamal LNG in the Russian Arctic. The Alaskan projects aims to ship a LNG cargo to Asia in 14 days, about twice as fast as shipments from the US Gulf Coast, Mead Treadwell*, Qilak’s CEO and chair, told Reuters in an interview this week.

“This project could open up a whole new province of supply for LNG, ammonia and hydrogen … . There are geopolitical advantages, and diversifying Arctic gas supplies away from Russia is generally a well received concept,” Mr Treadwell said.

The company is banking on producing LNG at a lower cost compared with Yamal LNG.

Yamal LNG shipped its first cargo in 2017. Company data show its uses €26 billion to liquify its annual production of 16.5 million tons of LNG. That is about €1.5 billion per 1 million tons, according to Reuters calculations.

Qilak’s annual output is set to be 4 million tons and at a cost of €4.75 billion, should be €1.2 billion per ton, according to Reuters calculations.

Qilak LNG is working with Lazard as investment bank to attract financing and also plans to offer an ownership stake to Alaska entities including indigenous investment groups, said Mr Treadwell, a former lieutenant governor of Alaska.

“We are speaking to potential investors inside and outside Japan, as well as firms that can help us reduce the carbon footprint of the project,” he said, without providing further details.

The project, equal to 1% of global LNG demand, should be launched by 2030 when potential buyers see a shortage coming up, a delay from 2027 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Treadwell said.

“We are focusing on the north-east Asian market — there are countries beyond the north-east Asia who are considering involvement to step up their LNG purchases,” he said, adding that Japan’s current and future LNG receiving terminals could be also used for transhipment.

Qilak LNG is yet to chose engineering, procurement and construction, as well as shipping companies, but Nana Worley and Aker Arctic Technology are expected to lead the feasibility study, Mr Treadwell said.

“If we stay on schedule then the feasibility study would be done this year and with front-end engineering design in 2024,” he said, adding that a final investment decision is possible in 2025, depending on a number of conditions.

The project plans to use gravity-base structures — special weighted legs that support offshore platforms — set off the Arctic shore of Alaska and would deliver three to five tankers per month to Asia, according to Dubai-based Lloyds Energy, the project’s owner.

It plans to use the same type of ice-breaking Arc7 LNG tankers that Yamal operates, Mr Treadwell said.

(Reporting by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Florence Tan and Christian Schmollinger)

*Mr Treadwell is member of the board of ABJ’s parent organisation Arctic Today.

FURTHER READING

• Following the lead of Russia’s Yamal LNG, a new plan for Alaska natural gas proposes skipping the costly pipeline
• A major Alaska Arctic natural gas plan now looks economically dubious — but it just passed a major milestone
• Under settlement, ExxonMobil proposes more oil production at Point Thomson field
• Feasibility study for Qilak LNG (Aker Arctic)

By Elías Thorsson

REYKJAVÍK — THE ICELANDIC fishing industry posted a 23% annual increase in the volume of fish caught in 2022, according to recent figures from Hagstofa Íslands, the national statistics agency.

The first-sale value — the amount earned at auction by registered buyers — of the 1.4 million tons landed last year was 195 billion króna (€1.3 billion), a 20% increase compared with the previous year.

The fishing industry accounts for 17% of Iceland’s exports (second after tourism at more than 40%), and Hagstofa Íslands estimates that value of Icelandic fish sold abroad amounted to 350 billion króna.

Groundfish made up the most valuable segment of the catch, earning 136 billion króna, with cod (85 billion króna) and haddock (21 billion króna) being the two primary species.

The value of the pelagic catch was 48 billion króna, with capelin making up close to half the value (19.5 billion króna).

FURTHER READING

• Canadian trawlers are considering dropping Greenland after news of new cargo-rates
• Blame ‘borealisation’ for the disaster befalling the snow crab
• Arctic fisheries brace for ‘significant’ effects from China’s coronavirus lockdow
• Iceland reaps riches from warming oceans as fish swim north

The Bureau of Land Management is expected to deliver a final record of decision for the Willow project as early as today

By James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

ALASKA’S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION met for an hour with President Joe Biden late Thursday, making what they said will be one of the final pitches in favour of the Willow oil project on the North Slope.

If the project is approved by the Interior Department — an act that could come as early as this week — ConocoPhillips Alaska would have the go-ahead to build Alaska’s largest new oil and gas development in decades.

“There’s campaigns that will be going on right up until the end, but I think it’s pretty clear that the White House intends to make a decision on this in the very near term here, I would say definitely in the next week,” said Lisa Murkowski, a Republican representing Alaska in the Senate.

While the final word on the project will formally come from the Interior Department, Dan Sullivan, a Republican who is the state’s other senator, said there’s no doubt that Mr Biden himself will be making the decision.

“It’s clear that this is a decision being made by the president of the United States and the White House,” he said.

Mr Sullivan, Ms Murkowski and Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is the state’s sole member of the House of Representatives, all participated in the meeting, conducting what the two senators said was a “divide and conquer” approach, with Mr Sullivan offering national security arguments in favour of the project, Ms Murkowski offering that the state’s economic security was at stake, and Ms Peltola commenting on the broad local and state support for the project.

All three said it was impossible to tell how well their pitch went.

“I will say they were primarily in listening mode, and we presented what to me was an overwhelmingly strong case,” Mr Sullivan said.

The delegation presented its case alone, and the president was accompanied by a handful of top aides.

“These are negotiators at the top level, they are experienced poker faces,” Ms Peltola said.

The Bureau of Land Management indicated last month that it would allow ConocoPhillips to construct three drilling sites in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, with a possible fourth site in the future.

If constructed as planned, the project would produce about 180,000 barrels of oil per day, generating billions of dollars in economic impact payments to the North Slope’s local governments. The state of Alaska is expected to receive between $5 billion (€4.7 billion) and $9 billion in tax revenue over the lifetime of the project.

“The State of Alaska needs an economically viable project out of the National Petroleum Reserve. And we think this is the project,” Ms Murkowski said.

“We’re not in a healthy place right now,” she said. “We’ve got net out-migration, we have the lowest GDP growth, we have high unemployment numbers and have been the slowest to recover from the pandemic.”

The project is expected to create 2,500 construction jobs and hundreds more in the long run, according to estimates provided by ConocoPhillips.

In the week preceding the meeting, a constellation of Alaskans, including state legislators, traveled to Washington, DC, to lobby in favor of the project. Mr Sullivan presented Mr Biden with a copy of a unanimous, bipartisan resolution from the Alaska Legislature backing Willow.

Opponents say the project’s biggest drawback is its impact on the environment. Burning the oil produced by Willow would create 260 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, estimates indicate, contributing to global climate change. That’s caused national environmental groups to oppose the project.

The City of Nuiqsut and the Native Village of Nuiqsut, representing some local residents, also have urged the federal government to reject the project. A rally against the project took place Friday in front of the White House.

But trade unions, most local and state government officials, and industry groups are backing the project and in Alaska, supporters appear to significantly outnumber detractors.

“Alaskans are speaking largely with one voice. Yes, there are outliers, there are people who are not in agreement, but the majority, the vast majority, are supportive,” Ms Peltola said.

The Biden administration has repeatedly said that addressing climate change is a top priority, and a leaked analysis published Friday by Fox News showed that environmental concerns caused the administration to seek higher royalty fees during a recent oil and gas lease sale in Cook Inlet.

Drillers have repeatedly shown little interest in federal lease sales there, and the new sale saw only one bidder.

The worry with Willow, Mr Sullivan said, is that in order to satisfy environmentalists, Mr Biden will approve only two drill sites. ConocoPhillips has said that a limited approval would make the project uneconomic, halting it.

Mr Sullivan said the federal government’s own analysis concluded that Willow oil would account for 0.15% of national carbon emissions based on 2019 figures and that a “market substitution analysis” performed by the Bureau of Land Management showed that if Willow was not developed and imported oil were used instead, there would be a greater effect on global climate because the oil would likely come from places with poor environmental standards.

Mr Sullivan said he presented Mr Biden with a list of 45 executive actions limiting development in Alaska and “respectfully but forcefully” told the president that blocking Willow “would be a continuation of what I believe is an unprecedented number of actions by your administration”.

The Bureau of Land Management is expected to deliver a final record of decision for the Willow project as early as today.

Ms Peltola said she’s not prepared to guess how the president will decide.

“I do not like making predictions. This is the point where I feel I’ve made my best effort, and now it’s God’s will,” she said.

FURTHER READING

• A Willow the greens can do without
• As a new review gets underway, the future of a huge Arctic Alaska oil project is uncertain
• Biden administration backs smaller version of ConocoPhillips project
• A US federal judge throws out the approval of a major new oil project in Alaska’s Arctic
• Appeals court halts construction at ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in Alaska’s Arctic 

Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: [email protected]. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter.