Alaska’s largest rural air carrier, RavnAir Group, says it’s cutting its service by 90% amid a coronavirus-driven crash in revenue — a move that could leave dozens of rural villages with deeply diminished air service.
North Slope
Prudhoe Bay worker tests positive for COVID-19, BP says
Oil and gas company BP confirmed Tuesday that a worker at Prudhoe Bay has tested positive for COVID-19.
Already low price for Alaska crude oil falls further as the world responds to coronavirus
The price of U.S. and global benchmarks are both below $40 per barrel. The COVID-19 pandemic is driving some of the recent decline, but prices were low even before the outbreak.
Oil companies are screening employees for fever before flying them up to Alaska’s North Slope
The companies met last week and agreed to start screening all of their workers when they check in in Anchorage.
Hilcorp revived this declining North Slope oil field. Can it do the same for Prudhoe Bay?
While many North Slope fields are on the decline, production at Hilcorp’s Milne Point has actually increased by huge amounts. Now the company is acquiring the massive Prudhoe Bay field, raising hopes of a similar revival there.
Kaktovik is crawling with polar bears. Now a man is going to prison for wasting one.
The case shows how it’s become common for polar bears to disrupt village life in Kaktovik, which sits on an island at the edge of the Beaufort Sea. As climate change melts sea ice and drives the bears ashore, residents say they’ve been under increasing stress.
Alaska oil tax initiative has enough valid signatures to appear on ballot, election officials say
When the oil tax initiative would appear on a ballot depends on when the Alaska Legislature wraps up its work.
Wells Fargo becomes 3rd major US bank to nix Arctic oil investment
Wells Fargo’s announcement follows similar policies against Arctic drilling adopted by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, as well as a string of European banks.
Dramatic ocean changes are coming ‘a couple decades too early,’ scientists say
One researcher says now is a key time for studies on Arctic Ocean conditions, before hotter temperatures from climate change become the new normal.
Anxiety creeps into oil-dependent Alaska as banks step back from Arctic investment
Development in the Arctic is booming as the global climate warms and ice melts. But environmental opposition has come along with it, making some big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase more reticent about investing.