The first of six Alaskan offshore oil and gas auctions mandated in US President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) through 2032 has fallen flat with no bids submitted as of the 4 March deadline, according to the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
The sale targeted more than 1 million acres (404,686 hectares) in Alaska's environmentally sensitive Cook Inlet, which stretches about 180 miles from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage, separating the Kenai Peninsula from the mainland.
"At this time, no bids have been received," the BOEM announced on its website. "In accordance with OBBBA, we will continue to hold leasing opportunities for Cook Inlet so that industry has a regular, predictable federal leasing schedule that ensures we achieve President Trump's American Energy Dominance Agenda."
The last federal auction for acreage in Cook Inlet was held in 2022 and attracted only one bid—from Houston-based Hilcorp, which holds eight active federal leases but is not currently producing, according to BOEM.
Further auctions for oil and gas leases in Cook Inlet are scheduled for 2027 and 2028, followed by three more yearly from 2030 to 2032, as mandated in federal legislation.
“Even when a sale receives no bids, maintaining a transparent, congressionally mandated schedule keeps Cook Inlet opportunities available for future investment, strengthens national readiness, and supports Alaska’s role in meeting America’s energy needs,” BOEM noted in a press release in January.
Same Story for State Lease Offers
In November 2025, the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas’ annual areawide Cook Inlet sale received only one bid on its offer of 2.9 million acres of state-managed offshore and onshore territory—Three Mountain Oil LLC submitted a $600 bid for a 20-acre tract, according to the division.
The Alaska Beacon noted in a 4 March article that the price is low when compared to the “tens of thousands of dollars per tract, and sometimes more” paid in past state Cook Inlet lease sales.
An areawide lease sale for state territory on the Alaska Peninsula, held at the same time, for example, drew a single bid of $800 from an individual for a 160-acre parcel. It was the first time a bid had been received in the annual Alaska Peninsula sale since 2014, the news organization reported.
In addition to the federal acreage in Cook Inlet, the Trump administration has mandated up to 30 lease sales through 2040 across roughly 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. In November, BOEM announced the first auction in the series.
The Gulf’s Outer Continental Shelf spans roughly 160 million acres, with an estimated 29.59 billion bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 54.84 Tcf of natural gas.
During the 10 December lease sale, coined Big Beautiful Gulf 1 (BBG1), the total of all high bids came in at $279.4 million, according to the BOEM. Of the 15,156 blocks on offer, covering about 80 million acres, 181 received bids from 30 companies, bidding singly or jointly.