Tegan Hanlon, Alaska Public Media

A federal judge said Saturday that ConocoPhillips can’t start opening a gravel mine or building gravel roads at its Willow oil project for up to two weeks.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason’s order comes after conservation groups appealed her decision last week to allow the work at Willow.

Willow is the name of Conoco’s massive oil project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, on the western North Slope.

Supporters say the project will lead to hundreds of jobs and help keep oil flowing down the trans-Alaska pipeline for decades. But conservation groups say it will cause too much harm — adversely impacting wildlife, the land and those who live in the nearby village of Nuiqsut.

Conoco has said it could start producing oil at Willow in about five years.

This winter, it wants to build ice and gravel roads in the area, plus a mine site, about seven miles from Nuiqsut.

But conservation groups are suing, and want the project stopped.

Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, the Center for Biological Diversity and about a half-dozen other conservation groups sued the Trump administration in late 2020, arguing the government violated environmental laws when it OK’d the Willow project.

The groups want work halted on the project until the lawsuits are resolved.

They’ve recently taken their requests to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Gleason ruled Saturday that Conoco can continue construction on its seasonal ice roads, but it must not blast the gravel mine or build gravel roads until Feb. 20 or until the Ninth Circuit rules on the groups’ requests — whichever happens first.

Conoco had planned to break ground at the mine site on Feb. 12, according to Gleason’s 11-page order.

She described the mandatory pause as a “brief and limited injunction.”

She said while she remains confident in last week’s decision to allow the work at Willow, the Ninth Circuit may disagree with her. There’s a “strong likelihood of irreparable environmental consequences” once the blasting operations at the mine site start, she said.

The conservation groups behind the lawsuits celebrated Gleason’s decision.

“We must protect the Arctic, not exploit it,” said a statement Sunday from Kristen Monsell, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Asked how Gleason’s order impacted Conoco’s plans for Willow, a company spokesperson Rebecca Boys said in an emailed response that it does not prevent the ongoing construction of ice roads. She said she could not comment further on the active litigation.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a response from ConocoPhillips spokesperson Rebecca Boys.

A federal judge has denied requests by conservation groups that she block ConocoPhillips from starting construction work this winter on its massive oil discovery, called Willow.

Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, the Center for Biological Diversity and about a half-dozen other groups sued the Trump administration in late 2020, arguing it violated environmental laws when it approved the Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the western North Slope.

The groups also asked U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason to block Conoco from starting construction on Willow this winter until the lawsuits are resolved.

Gleason denied those requests on Monday.

In a 28-page order, her reasons for the denial included that the groups, she said, didn’t demonstrate that polar bears would likely suffer “irreparable injury” if the construction work was allowed while she considered the lawsuits.

The conservation groups have appealed Gleason’s decision, and the broader lawsuits will also continue.

“We are hopeful that the court will put us back on the right path and stop the Trump administration’s last-minute effort to allow work on this environmentally reckless project to begin,” said a statement Friday from Earthjustice attorney Jeremy Lieb.

Meanwhile, Conoco said this week that it will begin laying gravel for the Willow project soon.

According to court documents, the company’s work this winter includes the construction of gravel and ice roads, as well as the opening of a gravel mine.

The company will have about 120 employees working on the projects, said Rebecca Boys, a company spokeswoman.

Conoco has said it expects oil production to start around 2026.

Willow would be the North Slope’s westernmost oil field, and Conoco said it could produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak.

President Joe Biden hit pause Wednesday on any new leases for oil and gas development on federal lands, drawing cheers from conservation groups and criticism from the fossil fuel industry.

“We’re going to review and reset the oil and gas leasing program,” Biden said, before signing a series of executive orders aimed at combating climate change.

A piece of one order directs the Interior Department to suspend new leasing until the review is completed.

The order doesn’t prohibit work on existing oil and gas leases. Because of that, it shouldn’t have an immediate impact on oil operations in Alaska, according to Andy Mack, a former natural resources commissioner for the state.

“Alaskans should take a deep breath because there are already a tremendous number of acres under lease in the most prospective area on federal land, which is the National Petroleum Reserve,” he said.

The reserve, on the western North Slope, is home to some of the state’s biggest, planned oil projects — including ConocoPhillips’ Willow prospect. A Conoco spokeswoman said the company has the required permits for its work in the reserve this winter.

But Kara Moriarty, head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, said she’s concerned about the impact of Biden’s order beyond this winter.

There’s no set time limit for the Interior’s review, according to a department spokesman.

“So,” Moriarty said, “you don’t know how long that ban on leasing is going to be.”

Moriarty also expects the suspension to be the first step in sweeping changes under Biden.

“I think it’s fair to say that our leasing and permitting program on federal lands is going to change. We just don’t know how, and we just don’t know when,” she said. “So that’s just a recipe for the most extreme uncertainty that I could think of.”

While the majority of Alaska’s oil production currently comes from state lands, Moriarty said, “the future is in federal lands.”

Biden’s order to suspend leasing indefinitely follows a 60-day pause on new drilling permits and leases on federal land, unless approved by top Interior officials.

On his first day in office, the president also imposed a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Conservation groups have applauded Biden’s orders, saying they’re major steps in the right direction, and a sharp shift from the policies of the Trump administration.

“We’re going to need a bunch more work in the years ahead to correct a lot of the damage that President Trump did in the past four years,” said Andy Moderow, state director for the Alaska Wilderness League.

“But I think we’re on a good strong course,” he said. “And we’re grateful for Biden’s leadership.”

Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, an advocacy group of Inupiat leadership organizations across the North Slope, doesn’t agree.

In a statement, the group said Biden’s orders halting leasing in the reserve and work in the Arctic refuge will have a significant impact on the region’s economy and jobs.

“We’re not climate change deniers. We have lived in the Arctic for thousands of years and have witnessed first-hand its effects on coastal erosion, melting sea ice and subsistence resources. We’ve worked hard to balance the health of our environment and culture with the survival of our people and communities, and we’ll continue to do so,” North Slope Borough Mayor Harry Brower said in a statement from the group.

“Shutting down the industry that supports virtually everything in our region – especially as we struggle with the effects of a global pandemic – will have very real, negative consequences for the indigenous people, and all residents, of the North Slope,” Brower said.

President Joe Biden imposed a “temporary moratorium” on all oil and gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge shortly after taking office on Wednesday, citing the “alleged legal deficiencies underlying the program” and the inadequacy of a required environmental review.

Biden’s move to slam the brakes on drilling in the northeast Alaska refuge is among a list of executive orders the newly-inaugurated president swiftly signed to undo actions by his predecessor.

The new moratorium comes a day after the Trump administration announced, in its final moments, that it had finalized nine 10-year leases for oil drilling in the northernmost slice of the refuge, known as the coastal plain.

The leases are held by two small companies and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state-owned corporation.

The Trump administration had faced criticism that it rushed the controversial deals.

Biden’s executive order directs the Interior Department to review the oil-leasing program for the refuge, and “as appropriate and consistent with applicable law” to do a new analysis of its potential environmental impacts.

Biden campaigned on “permanently protecting” the Arctic refuge, and “reversing Trump’s attacks” on the area, but had not released any specifics about his intentions before Wednesday.

Larry Persily, a longtime observer of the oil and gas industry in Alaska, said he didn’t expect a moratorium to have immediate, sweeping impacts because there’s no near-term work to stop.

“The leaseholders don’t have the financial wherewithal to pay for activity,” Persily said in an interview Wednesday. “They’ve got to find partners, they’ve got to come up with plans, they’ve got to go for permits, there’s got to be environmental reviews.”

‘A very good day’

Still, environmental groups and Indigenous Gwich’in leaders said the news gave them an overwhelming sense of relief.

“I thanked the creator,”  said Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee and a longtime drilling opponent. “And I just sat on my couch and looked at my grandson and just cried. Everything I do is for our future generations.”

The Gwich’in live just outside the refuge, and depend on the caribou that commonly give birth in the coastal plain.

They have long worked with environmental groups on an aggressive opposition campaign to oil drilling on the coastal plain, arguing that development would harm wildlife and the land — and exacerbate climate change in a place that’s already warming fast.

Demientieff described Wednesday as “a very good day,” but said “the fight goes on.” The Gwich’in Steering Committee is behind one of four lawsuits that call on a federal judge to cancel the oil leases issued by the Trump administration.

“Permanent protection is what we are looking for,” Demientieff said.

Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, summed up opponents’ feelings another way, saying in a statement: “Our long national nightmare of environmental carnage ends today.”

‘I’m prepared to use every resource available to fight for Alaskans right to have a job’

Drilling booster Gov. Mike Dunleavy, however, was not pleased with Wednesday’s news. He blasted Biden for “making good on his promise to turn Alaska into a large national park.”

“I’m prepared to use every resource available to fight for Alaskans’ right to have a job, and have a future by taking advantage of every opportunity available to us,” Dunleavy said in a statement.

Alaska’s congressional delegation also slammed the move by Biden to block oil development in the refuge, saying they were “disappointed” and “astounded” by his day-one announcement.

“Well that was fast,” U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said in a statement. “Today, in his inaugural address, President Biden called for national unity and healing. However, just hours earlier, his administration took their cues from radical environmentalists in issuing punitive and divisive actions against Alaska, many other resource development states, and whole sectors of our economy,”

Even before Biden’s action, though, the refuge’s future as a source of oil and jobs was far from secure.

The Trump administration held the refuge’s first oil sale Jan. 6, following a 2017 decision by Congress to open the area to leasing.

But the sale drew little interest. No major oil companies bid on the leases. Instead, two smaller companies each picked up a single lease, and the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority picked up seven.

‘We will be at the table for whatever they do’

Former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker had pushed the state to bid on the leases, concerned that the oil industry wouldn’t show up to the sale.

Biden’s moratorium, Walker said Wednesday, came as “no surprise at all.”

He said he’s pleased the state now holds the leases, and believes that will give it more power in talks with the Biden administration about the refuge’s future.

“We will be at the table for whatever they do, which we would not be, had we done nothing,” Walker said.

Andy Mack, a former natural resources commissioner under Walker, described the leases as “legally binding.”

If the Biden administration decides to ban oil drilling in the coastal plain, Mack said, it needs to figure out a way to compensate those that would have financially benefited from development, including the state of Alaska, and two Alaska Native corporations, Kaktovik Iñupiat Corp. and Arctic Slope Regional Corp.

“This needs to be a value exchange,” Mack said. “There has to be something really, really significant placed on the table that we, as a state, can rely on.”

This story has been updated.

In the final moments of Donald Trump’s presidency, the federal Bureau of Land Management announced Tuesday that it has signed and issued leases for oil drilling in parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

BLM Alaska spokeswoman Lesli Ellis-Wouters said the leases were signed on Thursday, just over a week after the first-ever oil lease sale in the Arctic refuge was held.

Issuing the leases was a priority for the administration, said Ellis-Wouters.

But critics have blasted the administration for rushing to lock-in oil leasing in the refuge at unprecedented speeds before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Wednesday.

The process to formally issue the leases — which includes an antitrust review — usually takes about two months, said Jenny Rowland-Shea, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank

“We’re compressing a 60-day process, really, into two weeks, and that raises serious questions,” she said.

Biden takes office Wednesday and has said he opposes drilling in the Arctic refuge. Locking in the oil and gas leases could make it more difficult for his administration to reverse course.

The Arctic refuge lease sale was held on Jan. 6 and attracted just three bidders, the state of Alaska being the most aggressive.

The federal government said Tuesday that it has issued nine of the 11 oil leases that got bids. Two went to smaller companies and seven went to the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.

The state authority was also the highest bidder on the remaining two leases that have not yet been issued.

“I can say that we’re only issuing the leases on those we have received the required paperwork for,” Ellis-Wouters said.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Just two companies and a state corporation showed up to the first-ever oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge last week, after 40 years of debate.

But still, about half a million acres of land did get picked up — nearly all of it by the state of Alaska itself.

So, what happens next?

Here’s what we know.

State agency focused on getting leases finalized

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority entered the lease sale at the last minute as a backstop, in case no one else showed up to secure the rights to the land.

It wound up as the most aggressive of just three bidders.

That means the state won 10-year oil leases for nine pieces of land by submitting the minimum offer that the federal government would accept: $25 an acre.

“We are very happy that we were able to win some of the tracts in this case,” Alan Weitzner, AIDEA’s executive director, said in an interview Thursday.

“We would have preferred to see a more competitive bid put in place,” he said. “But I do think that there was a lot of uncertainty related to it.”

Drilling for oil in the refuge faces an aggressive opposition campaign. It’s also expensive, and uncertainty surrounds the future of oil demand — as well as just how much crude is actually trapped under the land.

Weitzner said he hopes the state’s decision to step in removes at least some of the uncertainty the oil industry might have about drilling in the coastal plain.

AIDEA has never held a federal oil lease before, and it doesn’t own drilling equipment, so it will likely have to depend on partnering with the industry to explore for oil and develop the land.

Weitzner didn’t have specifics on Thursday about who AIDEA might partner with, what the partnerships might look like or when it might start that work.

“It’s too early to say and give that information of what our definitive plan is going forward,” he said.

“We do have a very strong interest in ensuring that the state has tangible benefits that come from this development. And we have have distinct interest to ensure that it is done in a responsible manner.”

For now, Weitzner said he’s working with the federal Bureau of Land Management to get the paperwork done to finalize the leases.

Usually, the process takes about two months, but it’s expected that the Trump administration will rush to get it done before leaving office Jan. 20.

At last week’s sale, AIDEA spent about $12 million on oil leases that cover about 480,000 acres of federal land.

Half of that cash will go back to the state, because it splits the revenues with the federal government.

Two smaller companies see opportunity to enter Arctic refuge early

Knik Arm Services is one of two tiny companies that each picked up a single oil lease.

Mark Graber manages Knik Arm Services, and in an interview from Texas, he said the payoff is potentially huge if the U.S. Geological Survey’s estimates of the amount of oil beneath the refuge are correct.

“I’m an investor,” said Graber, who described himself as a “snowbird” who splits his time between Texas and Alaska.

“I go where I think a fair investment might offer a decent return for the risk,” he said.

Graber said he’s putting up a “good deal” of his own money to purchase the lease, along with other “funders” who he declined to name. He said he thinks he understands why major oil companies didn’t show up to the lease sale.

“Because it’s controversial,” he said. “They knew Alaska was going to bid on it. So, they knew that they’d have a chance to pick it up later.”

He argues that it won’t be a problem to develop the land without harming wildlife. Knik Arm Services wouldn’t drill itself, but would work with other companies to explore for oil “when the time is ripe,” he said.

Graber said this isn’t the first time he has made investments during a down market.

“We always bought real estate during the real estate crash of ‘89,” he said. “We’ve always tried to facilitate a weak market by taking the gamble and taking a risk. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

The other small company that won a lease is Regenerate Alaska, a subsidiary of Australia-based 88 Energy.

The slice of land it picked, on the refuge’s western edge, is near a state-owned parcel that the company already leases, and next to ExxonMobil’s Point Thompson field.

David Wall, chief executive of 88 Energy, told the Anchorage Daily News that he saw it as a “soft entry” into the refuge. He said he doesn’t want to upset anyone, but wants to “make money for ourselves, and the state and its people.”

Drilling opponents say they’re not done fighting

Meanwhile, Indigenous and environmental groups that have long fought drilling in the refuge say they’re not giving up.

“We are going to do everything in our power to prevent the leases from being issued before Inauguration Day,” said Karlin Itchoak, Alaska state director for The Wilderness Society. “And we’re going to do everything we can to prevent oil and gas development from ever happening on the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge.”

Itchoak said he couldn’t talk specifics about how the groups could block leases from getting issued, “because we don’t want to show our hand.”

Some have raised questions about the legality of the state of Alaska jumping into the lease sale. The Bureau of Land Management said Wednesday that it doesn’t see any legal issues.

Leaders of the Gwich’in Steering Committee say they met Friday with Weitzner, the AIDEA director, and urged him to reconsider leasing the refuge. The Gwich’in subsist on caribou that give birth in the Arctic refuge’s coastal plain, which was the area that the Trump administration put up for sale.

“We let them know that our way of life is not negotiable, and that we wanted to know how they intend to include Indigenous voices, and protect Indigenous ways of life and values,” Bernadette Demientieff, the Gwich’in Steering Committee’s executive director, said in a prepared statement.

Itchoak said drilling opponents just need to halt any progress until Inauguration Day, because they expect support from the next administration.

President-elect Joe Biden and his appointee to lead the Interior Department, U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, D-New Mexico, have both said they oppose drilling in the refuge.

“We’re hopeful that if we can hold off the issuance of the leases by or before the inauguration, that will be a positive outcome for protecting the refuge for the long term,” said Itchoak.

Biden has not said what his exact plans are for the coastal plain, but it’s possible he could try to buy back the oil leases or hold up the permits that companies need to search for oil and develop the land.

The Wilderness Society and other groups are also in court fighting against the oil leasing program for the refuge.

There are four lawsuits working their way through the federal court system that, effectively, ask a judge to cancel the oil leases, arguing that they’re based on a rushed and legally-flawed plan.

The federal government disagrees, and says it followed the law.

Alaska Public Media’s Nat Herz contributed to this story.