Elizabeth Harball, Alaska's Energy Desk

Alaska’s leaders are getting ready for tough negotiations over how the state will deal with its multibillion-dollar budget hole. How much the oil and gas industry should help fill that hole will be an especially controversial question for the legislature this session.

Armstrong and its partner Repsol, a Spanish company, say a development there could produce about 120,000 barrels of oil per day. That’s almost a quarter of the amount currently flowing through the pipeline. Armstrong Energy director Ed Kerr says the company aims to deliver first oil in 2022.

One Alaskan thinks he’s figured out a better way to do clean up oil spills. He doesn’t work in a lab, he doesn’t have any fancy degrees and he’s not backed by the government or a big company. But some experts think he might be on to something.

The Alaska Native corporation representing the North Slope has bought two federal leases in the Beaufort sea formerly owned by Shell. That gives the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, or ASRC, the right to explore for oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean, which has historically been controversial in the region.

Alaskans joined protesters around the country Tuesday staging demonstrations against the Dakota Access pipeline project, including two in Anchorage.

The team working on the Alaska LNG gas line project is undergoing a big shift as the state prepares to take over.