Image copyright AP Image caption Shell had leased rigs for the Arctic but said it did not find sufficient amounts of oil and gas 
 
 The US government has announced new curbs on oil and gas exploration in Arctic waters off Alaska's northern coast. 
 
 It comes after oil giant Royal Dutch Shell last month stopped its Arctic activity citing "disappointing" tests. 
 
 The US interior department said it was cancelling two potential Arctic offshore lease sales and would not extend current leases. 
 
 The announcement has been welcomed by environmentalists. 
 
 Miyoko Sakashita, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the decision was "great for the Arctic and its polar bears". 
 
 "We need to keep all the Arctic oil in the ground," she said. 
 
 US government leases are due to expire in the Beaufort Sea in 2017 and in the Chukchi Sea in 2020. 
 
 "In light of Shell's announcement, the amount of acreage already under lease and current market conditions, it does not make sense to prepare for lease sales in the Arctic in the next year and a half," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement. 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption Environmental activists have long campaigned against offshore drilling in the Arctic 
 
 Shell has spent about $7bn (£4.5bn) on Arctic offshore development in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. 
 
 However, last month it announced it had not found sufficient amounts of oil and gas in the region to warrant further exploration. 
 
 It said it would end exploration off Alaska "for the foreseeable future". 
 
 Correspondents say the Arctic is a risky and expensive place for oil companies to explore, and the current low price of oil makes it even less attractive. 
 
 The US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds about 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas, as well as 13% of its oil. 
 
 However, environmental groups say offshore drilling will pollute and damage a natural wilderness. 
 
 They also argue that fossil fuels such as oil and gas must be left in the ground if the world is to avoid runaway climate change. ||||| U.S. Backs Away From Offshore Arctic Drilling 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Elaine Thompson/AP Elaine Thompson/AP 
 
 The U.S. government is backing away from Arctic offshore oil and gas drilling on two fronts. 
 
 On Friday, the Department of the Interior announced the cancellation of two potential lease sales off the Alaskan coast in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement also denied lease extension requests from two companies, Shell and Statoil, that were exploring the seas for fossil fuels. 
 
 The decisions to nix the lease sales, which the statement attributed to "current market conditions and low industry interest," follows Shell's announcement that it will stop exploration in the Chukchi Sea for "the foreseeable future." 
 
 "In light of Shell's announcement, the amount of acreage already under lease and current market conditions, it does not make sense to prepare for lease sales in the Arctic in the next year and a half," said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. 
 
 Lois Epstein, an engineer for the environmental group The Wilderness Society, characterized the government's decision as reasonable, according to a statement. 
 
 "Because of Shell's failure to find significant oil in the Chukchi Sea, new Arctic Ocean lease sales — which require extensive government preparation and costs — would likely be unsuccessful," Epstein said. 
 
 In explaining why Shell and Statoil were not given permission to retain their leases beyond 10 years, the Interior Department statement said that the companies "did not demonstrate a reasonable schedule of work for exploration and development." 
 
 Epstein praised the move, saying, "We applaud Interior's decision not to continue discussing extensions of their existing leases with Shell and other Arctic Ocean leaseholders." 
 
 The existing leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas will expire in 2017 and 2020, respectively. ||||| Greenpeace activists demonstrate on March 16, 2012 in the port of Helsinki as other activists occupy a Shell-contracted icebreaker preparing to sail for the Arctic. | Getty ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT Greens decry Obama’s Shell game “The president cannot have it both ways,” Greenpeace says after the company wins an Arctic drilling permit. 
 
 President Barack Obama crushed greens’ hearts Monday by giving Shell the final go-ahead to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic waters, just two weeks after he thrilled them by issuing his landmark regulations on climate change. 
 
 In the long run, Obama’s successors will determine whether the industry can tap Alaska’s prized offshore oil — and one 2016 contender, Hillary Clinton, has expressed “doubts” about opening the Arctic to drilling. But it was Obama’s Interior Department that gave Shell its nod Monday, in the face of an opposition campaign that has seen activists dangling from a bridge in Oregon and swarming the company’s Arctic-bound rig with kayaks to try to block the project. 
 
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 For greens, the announcement was even more galling because it arrived only two weeks before Obama is due to talk climate change during his first visit to Alaska’s Arctic. 
 
 “The president cannot have it both ways,” Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard said. “Announcing a tour of Alaska to highlight climate change days before giving Shell the final approval to drill in the Arctic ocean is deeply hypocritical.” 
 
 Monday’s decision was the latest pro-oil move from a president who has steadily offered mixed signals on fossil fuels throughout his presidency. Obama has repeatedly cheered the economic benefits of the domestic oil and gas boom while moving to open up parts the U.S. coast to possible offshore drilling — but he has also pushed to strip away billions of dollars in industry tax breaks, championed big spending on wind and solar power and, at the very least, dragged out his decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline for more than six years. 
 
 Even the Interior Department’s approval of Shell’s Arctic plans was no slam-dunk win for the company, which has already spent $7 billion on the risky search for oil deposits beneath the Arctic waters. 
 
 The new permit is good for several weeks only, and the oil giant doesn’t expect to start production in the Chukchi Sea until 2030, long after its current lease expires in 2020. Monday’s announcement also came with some tighter safety restrictions than Shell had faced before its last, ill-fated attempt at Arctic offshore drilling in 2012, when a series of pratfalls culminated in a rig breaking free and running aground while being towed out of Alaska on New Year’s Eve. 
 
 This time, other major oil companies are watching to see whether Shell succeeds in its quest for oil off the Alaska coast, which will have the U.S. join the ranks of Arctic nations such as Norway and Russia that are exploring for new energy deposits as the region’s ice cover recedes. 
 
 Even as climate activists lamented the Interior Department’s decision, they vowed to campaign even harder to convince Obama and the next president that Shell has no business in the Arctic. 
 
 Keeping the company out of the Arctic is “going to be a real battle, because Shell defines irresponsible and they will keep coming for this oil,” climate activist and author Bill McKibben said by email. Given the “clear” evidence that burning Arctic crude would worsen global warming, he added, “there’s at least a chance, long term, that reason will prevail. Only, of course, if reason comes with a movement to back it up, which all of us will do our best to keep providing.” 
 
 Shell, playing the long game, said it aims to prove the viability of its Arctic drilling effort. 
 
 “We remain committed to operating in a safe, environmentally responsible manner and look forward to evaluating what could potentially become a national energy resource base,” Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said by email. 
 
 Shell CEO Ben van Beurden has said he anticipates production from Alaskan leases to start in 2030, which would require an extension of its current Chukchi lease term. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is working to make that possible: She added language allowing Interior to give Alaskan drillers another decade to explore to a bill she’s sponsoring that would lift the United States’ ban on oil exports. 
 
 Some greens are optimistic that Shell’s plans will still fail. 
 
 “It may well be that action on climate is the reason these resources aren’t developed,” said Mike LeVine, senior counsel at the green group Oceana. “It may be that [the oil is] not there — and more attention to the issue helps on all those fronts.” 
 
 The Chukchi Sea is estimated to hold more recoverable oil than any coastal area outside the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Shell last got permission to drill into its oil-bearing zones between 1989 and 1991, when it ended its operations after discovering only natural gas. And since its missteps in 2012, the company has faced a colorful campaign by eco-activists, who have tried to obstruct its rig with a flotilla of kayaks as it left harbor in Seattle, dangled from a bridge in Oregon to block its icebreaker, and issued viral videos as well as circulating old-fashioned legal petitions. 
 
 “They see this season and next season as an opportunity to prove to their shareholders” that its Arctic leases are economically viable, Alaska Wilderness League Executive Director Cindy Shogan said, while “we see this season and next season as showing the Obama administration” that allowing further drilling in the area is a mistake. 
 
 The Obama administration insisted on Monday that it had thoroughly vetted the oil company’s operations before giving its approval. 
 
 “Activities conducted offshore Alaska are being held to the highest safety, environmental protection, and emergency response standards,” Brian Salerno, director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in a statement. 
 
 But greens who implored Obama to keep the oil industry out of Arctic waters said several elements of Shell’s new drilling permit stronger are actually weaker on safety than the 2012 version. Those include testing requirements for key safety equipment, which now need to be performed every two weeks rather than every week, and less stringent air quality standards. 
 
 Clinton, who is facing skepticism among many on the environmental left, appeared to side with greens on July 29 by telling a New Hampshire television station that “I have doubts about whether we should continue drilling in the Arctic.” 
 
 Clinton has previously said she favors shielding more areas from drilling, but has opposed banning it on all public lands and waters. Activists livid after BSEE approved Shell’s plans are highly likely to press her to move further left on Arctic oil and gas. 
 
 Shell got Interior’s green light to begin work in the Chukchi last month, but that permit blocked the company from drilling beyond 3,000 feet below the surface, short of the oil- and gas-bearing zones, until a damaged icebreaker ship could return to the area with required safety equipment. The repaired vessel returned to the Arctic in recent days, setting the stage for a final OK of Shell’s drilling plan. 
 
 The approval is good for this year’s summer season, set to end in late September. 
 
 Shell’s troubled 2012 drilling effort stopped short of oil- and gas-bearing zones in the Chukchi after Interior denied the permits, citing the failure of required safety equipment. An Interior review released in 2013 attributed the stumble to “shortcomings in Shell’s management and oversight of key contractors.” 
 
 The company drilled four exploration wells in the Chukchi between 1989 and 1991, according to Interior, including one located in the same Burger Prospect area off the Alaskan coast that Shell is seeking to tap this year. That early effort was abandoned after it yielded mostly natural gas, though newer geological data shows the likelihood that oil is also present. 
 
 Monday’s approval from Interior allows Shell to expand drilling at one well in the Burger area. The company remains barred from deeper access to a second well in the prospect — it is prohibited from drilling both prospects simultaneously, since both lie within a buffer zone that the administration previously established to protect walruses. 
 
 Shell’s current Alaskan offshore drilling program carries particular urgency for the company as it slashes spending elsewhere during a historic downturn in oil prices. It’s also crucial for Alaska, where the swoon in crude prices has crunched the state’s budgets and heightened the importance of new discoveries, even in federal waters that don’t yield direct royalty money for the state treasury. 
 
 Arctic drilling also stands to prove a crucial component of Obama’s climate legacy, despite the brighter spotlight his aides hope to shine on EPA emissions regulations. But environmentalists are aware of how much 2016 matters for their battle. 
 
 The Sierra Club’s lands protection director, Athan Manuel, said that “the next president will have big influence in whether a production platform is ever placed” in the Arctic, even as he promised activists wouldn’t give up on pressuring Obama to halt drilling off the Alaskan coast. “It’s just not something you’d expect from a Democratic president.”
– In bad news for the Alaskan economy but good news for polar bears, the US government blocked new offshore drilling in Alaska's Arctic Ocean and refused to extend two existing leases for Arctic drilling on Friday, the New York Times reports. The Interior Department cancelled auctions for drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas while declining to extend the Arctic leases of Shell (expires in 2017) and Statoil (expires in 2020), according to NPR. "In light of Shell's announcement, the amount of acreage already under lease, and current market conditions, it does not make sense to prepare for lease sales in the Arctic in the next year and a half," Interior secretary Sally Jewell says in a statement. The Shell announcement Jewell is talking about is the oil giant's decision last month to halt its Arctic drilling after accidents, delays, and $7 billion with nothing to show for it, the Times reports. The moves by the Obama administration Friday basically block drilling in the Alaskan Arctic for two years. It's a decision one Alaskan senator calls "stunning," "destructive," and "shortsighted." But Miyoko Sakashita of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity tells the BBC it's great news for the Arctic and its wildlife. "We need to keep all the Arctic oil in the ground," she says. The US Geological Survey believes the Arctic holds about 13% of the world's undiscovered oil, but the Times reports offshore Arctic drilling is declining—due to concerns over safety, cost, and the environment—in the US, Canada, and Greenland.