INVESTIGATIVE SERIES · ENERGY & LAND
Multi-part investigative series probing environmental mitigation funds, infrastructure loopholes, and North Slope oil development.
David Leslie, a longtime Fairbanks activist, scored a surprise fourth-place finish in preliminary results in Alaska’s U.S. Senate primary.
Scott Kendall says efforts by incompetent Outside consultants are more likely to help the very candidates that they’re intended to harm — and in reality, the real-world impact will be nothing at all.
“I absolutely should have seen this coming,” said Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
Other companies also have their leases tied up in litigation from local and environmental groups.
Currie Dixon is premier of the Yukon Territory. A lot of the issues on his mind might also be on yours.
AIDEA is spending as much as $175 million to look for petroleum in the refuge.
Hundreds of comments have been filed, with subject lines like "HELL NO! To ANY DATA CENTERS" and "NO AI".
Alaska’s major oil companies, and three municipalities, have filed separate appeals of a state tax board decision that set the value of the pipeline at $13 billion.
Repsol is emerging as one of the state’s most bullish oil companies.
We also ask what album candidates would bring if they were stranded on the remote Bering Sea island of St. Matthew.
But the decision is likely to head to be appealed to the courts.
"It’s pretty extreme,” said one longtime Alaska environmental advocate.
AIDEA intends to move ahead with geologic testing on its leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and to bid on new ones in an upcoming federal sale.
The $500 million project could consume twice as much natural gas as urban Alaska’s grid.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes for the state, the North Slope and Fairbanks boroughs and the city of Valdez could be at stake.
Two tankers have departed Valdez for Asia in recent weeks — the same number that shipped oil to Asia in all of 2025.
Alaska’s economic development agency, AIDEA, wants to conduct geologic testing on its existing oil leases — and to bid on new ones — in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
For years, some of Alaska’s largest mining proposals inched along, unable to attract big investment. Then the price of gold took off.
The wells was drilled on Indigenous-owned land, in a program that prompted sharp opposition from area tribes.
The independent says he's best situated to unseat incumbent Republican Nick Begich III.
Amid continuing opposition to its oil drilling and road projects, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority says the public should know about its less controversial small business loan programs.
The Trump administration could open federal waters off Alaska to mineral leasing, but the effort faces broad opposition.
Two huge companies thought to have little interest in Alaska investment, Shell and ExxonMobil, spent millions to buy new leases on the North Slope — though drilling still faces obstacles.
In December, the Interior Department scrapped an agreement with the village of Nuiqsut to restrict oil development near important caribou grounds. Now, the village is suing.
Three Alaska Native corporations and the state agency pushing the Ambler Road quietly signed a nonbinding agreement late last year.
Many candidates say they'll make the $40 billion-plus LNG project a priority.
The company said it will replace “The Beast” with another Doyon rig.
'Do you want your kids to see a drilling rig right outside your window?' asked one local leader in Nuiqsut.
New from Northern Journal: a recurring survey of candidates for governor.
Two big players in Alaska’s oil industry say they’re keen on investing in post-Maduro Venezuela.
For decades, Alaska land managers have been working to confirm the state's ownership of land beneath navigable rivers and lakes inside national parks and refuges.
The city of Valdez and the owner of the trans-Alaska pipeline are locked in a dispute over environmental protections at the state’s crude oil shipping port.
Narwhal Exploration is one of three small, privately owned companies with offshore leases in West Harrison Bay, a promising but largely unexplored area once controlled by Shell.
One utility leader points to private developers and the Trump tax bill. But advocates say utilities share some of the blame.
Demand for low-carbon nuclear energy could boost uranium prospects on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. But residents of the small village of Elim fear a mine would pollute the river they depend on.
Northern Journal helicoptered out to the offshore rig drilling for the increasingly scarce natural gas that powers urban Alaska.
The startup planning the operation near the North Slope oil fields would power its computers not with coal but with another fossil fuel: natural gas that’s currently going unused.
Two of Alaska’s members of Congress have not directly said how they’d vote on an expected Trump proposal to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
No one is saying whether the truck that spilled 1,000 gallons of fuel had been on a Hilcorp job. But it belongs to a company that’s worked for Hilcorp on its Yukon Flats exploration program.
New calls to raise Alaska’s mining taxes and royalties come as state officials face difficult fiscal decisions.
Hilcorp has signed oil leases with Doyon, the Indigenous-owned corporation for Interior Alaska, which hopes the drilling effort will yield the state’s next big oil field. But there’s fierce opposition from local tribes.
High school boys in one Kuskokwim River village can “forget the muscle cars,” said Barron Sample, principal of the school there. “You get the muscle dogs,” he said.
The real drama during Thursday's race was a quintessential Anchorage wildlife standoff — one that may have even altered the women’s podium.
Touting an unconventional approach, Contango Ore says it can develop mines faster and with a smaller environmental footprint. But some Alaskans fear an influx of ore trucks on state roads.
“The window for making decisions is closing,” said one top regulator. “If things just sort of slide and there’s no leadership, and we’re in the same position 12 months from now, we are looking at a dire, dire, situation. And people should get angry.”
We've got items on the proposed Ambler road and neighboring mines, a project to research low-carbon fuel that could come from Alaska mines and Indigenous challenges to mining projects in British Columbia and the Nome area.
A Hilcorp oil field in Alaska’s Arctic is set to host a tech firm that wants to use natural gas-fired power to mine digital currency.
Also: A renewable energy advocacy group says a recent ruling by state regulators is an "abdication" of their responsibility, and a contested election for leadership of Alaska's largest statewide Native organization.
The Republican governor says Alaska has in excess what the data industry is finding increasingly scarce Outside: land and water, if not cheap electricity. He also says new data centers would boost the case for Alaska’s proposed natural gas pipeline.
Interesting Stuff is back from hibernation. Items include a feud between bottled water companies and Anchorage's water utility, a Doyon subsidiary's acquisition of a share of a major pipeline on the North Slope and continuing turnover at the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.
A little known Texas company is buying a share of a key North Slope pipeline and asked to buy all of Chevron's oil interests in the region — reviving questions about the Alaska oil industry’s capacity to decommission aging infrastructure and pay damages in the event of a spill.
AIDEA has long used outside attorneys. What’s new is selecting firms in advance, which the agency's leader says allows work to happen more quickly than going through the state’s procurement process each time an issue comes up.
I want to hire a talented, young reporter to do more of what Northern Journal is already doing — independent journalism on Alaska’s lands and natural resources.
Greetings from Northern Journal headquarters — also known as my couch, here at home in Airport Heights. I'm just back from an amazing reporting trip to Kodiak. I'd been there twice before, each time briefly to cover the biennial Fish Debate, but this trip was longer. In addition to my time in Kodiak city, I spent a few days in the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq villages of Ouzinkie and Old Harbor, talking to residents about their access to the island's commercial fisheries. Fourth of July in Old Harbor is not
With the future of fossil fuels in question, an Australian oil company is branding its new Arctic development as climate-friendly.
As the world pivots toward lower-carbon energy sources in response to global warming, experts say some of the state’s hard-to-tap oil prospects are becoming less attractive.
Rex Rock and John Moller, both of whom used to advise Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy on rural affairs, were hired through a competitive procurement process along with two others.
Climate change poses an existential threat to cross-country skiing. But it's hard to talk about for some top athletes, who fear being accused of hypocrisy because of their travel-intensive lifestyles.
I interviewed the president of Enstar, which runs urban Alaska's gas utility, about problems with a storage facility and how they connect to long-term energy challenges facing the region.
GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy is asking legislators to spend another $4.5 million on marketing and development of the huge LNG project. But lawmakers sound increasingly skeptical.
The tribal and city councils in Nuiqsut withdrew their support for a joint letter they sent last year blasting the “endless expansion of oil development and the complete encirclement of our village."
Other highlights: money for tree planting and thinning, a new state vessel and plane, and a major budget boost for the state grant program funded by oil production in the National Petroleum Reserve.
Plus, Alaska's state-owned economic development agency could invest in a new North Slope infrastructure project.
Leaders of Alaska's biggest gas and electric utilities say they don't want to risk customer money to invest in uncertain drilling efforts, when imported LNG appears reliable and competitively priced.
Also: The pilot in the Halibut Cove float plane-boat faceoff makes her case to a federal judge, and a high-profile hire in the Alaska Senate.
The state will likely have to spend real money to get companies to drill more wells in Cook Inlet. But how much should Alaska invest in petroleum when cheap wind and solar are on the horizon?
Graphite is crucial for electrical vehicles, but China controls the global supply. A mine on the Seward Peninsula could help change that — but it's perched above an essential Iñupiaq subsistence area.
Enstar wants to take over the project last estimated to cost $10 billion. But its own chief executive acknowledges that the pipeline isn't viable without multi-billion-dollar subsidies from the state.
An update on the fate of The Walrus, coyotes attack Alaska soldiers in Louisiana and Gov. Mike Dunleavy visits a mining prospect in the Alaska Range, which could connect to the West Su Access road.
A federal court judge rejected a lawsuit from the state of Alaska and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority that challenged a suspension of oil leases in the Arctic Refuge.
How did a walrus get four miles from shore, to the middle of an Alaska oil field? I hunted for answers — and found them.
Alex Ortiz, a longtime staffer to the Alaska delegation, has taken a job as a lobbyist and consultant at Capitol Hill Consulting Group, whose clients include Native corporations and a mining company.
Alaska Renewables is proposing a major new wind development near the village of Tyonek, the Legislature's ethics committee loses its administrator and Murkowski gets a new communications director.
This week, we show how Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration has turned to investor Ellie Rubenstein for advice, and pry loose some details about the death of an employee of a Hilcorp contractor.
The mining company leading the Ambler mine project has shelved a planned summer drilling program amid delays to a related road proposal. Plus a property tax dispute over the Point Thomson oil field.
Nine candidates are vying for three seats on Chugach Electric Association's board of directors. Here are their positions on renewable power, transparency and liquefied natural gas imports.
Catching up on some nuggets from the state budget, news on a contentious mine and road proposal in Northwest Alaska, and links to some of my recent freelance pieces.
A dispatch from America's northernmost community, where hundreds gathered for a traditional Iñupiaq festival of dancing, gift-giving and connection.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in an interview, said he doesn't accept that carbon emissions cause climate change. But he still wants the state to benefit from markets that have arisen to address the problem.
ConocoPhillips has sued Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration to block a state-issued permit that grants a competing company access to its new Pikka project, over Conoco-built roads.
Australia-based Santos got a permit from the state to access its new Pikka development by crossing Conoco's roads. After losing an appeal last week, Conoco could now take its case to court.
Key decisions, like schools spending and the size of Alaska's oil-wealth checks, hang in the balance as lawmakers delay decisions until the result of a lawsuit challenging a Republican's eligibility.
Amid warnings of diminished supplies in the medium-term future, Anchorage's major home heating and electric utilities have hired consultants to examine imports of liquefied natural gas.
And, scroll down for a bit of news from Alaska's economic development arm.
A dispatch from Tokyo, and news on the Alaska Peninsula.
