Almost 80,000 acres of public land in northwest Arizona could be opened up for oil and gas drilling in December. That’s the basis of a May 12 proposal from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to allow leasing in the region near Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument and the town of Littlefield.
The agency is currently soliciting public comment on the idea.
But it flies in the face of the region’s known extractive history, says Ryan Porter, an assistant professor and geophysicist at Northern Arizona University who specializes in earthquake seismology.
“People have drilled wells … in that area, and as far as I know, none of them have actually successfully produced any hydrocarbons,” says Porter.
Brian Nowicki at the Center for Biological Diversity pointed to that fact in a statement after the proposal was released.
“This lease sale isn’t about energy production,” he wrote. “It’s about extracting money from clueless investors and wasting taxpayer resources.”
Existing oil and gas wells in the area proposed for leasing are mostly abandoned or were for exploratory purposes and are not productive, according to a map by the Arizona Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
However, nearby Virgin, Utah, did see a small oilfield that began operating in 1907 all the way through the 1940s.
“My best guess is there's a small chance that they do find something,” Porter says. “The geology in that field, just north of there, the Virgin field — they found some small oil reserves inside the Moenkopi Formation, which is a unit we actually see in Flagstaff, too. So there's a chance that they may find some small reserves there.”
He says it’s certainly possible the BLM or other stakeholders know something about the area’s potential that geologists like Porter don’t.
“There's a lot of proprietary information that goes into oil exploration,” Porter says.
One thing to keep in mind is that it can be expensive to drill exploratory oil and gas wells.
“It would be … particularly expensive to kind of just drill all over and see what you find,” Porter says. “The actual footprints tend to be fairly small.”
However, if a company did find substantial reserves, the drilling can be extensive.
“But I don't think there's — it's very likely that if people do find hydrocarbons that are recoverable, it won't be as big as you see in west Texas, for example,” he says.
The BLM’s proposal comes after the major tax and spending cuts bill President Donald Trump signed into law last year, which prioritizes expanding oil and gas production nationwide.
“Arizona remains an important oil and gas state in our administration's priority on strengthening American energy production,” said Bill Groffy, the BLM’s acting director, in a press release announcing the leasing proposal. “This lease sale, which will be the first to be held in Arizona since 2018, will extend our streak of successful oil and gas lease actions under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
The public comment period ends on June 11. Anyone interested in leaving a comment can do so here.
