Arctic Oil to Draw Bids Despite Rout, Interior Chief Predicts

Bleak crude prices and fuel demand forecasts won’t blunt oil company bidding for Arctic drilling rights, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said Monday.

Instead, companies are more likely to make offers based on longer-term forecasts and other considerations, Bernhardt said, as his agency weighs a sale this year of oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 1.56-million-acre coastal plain.

“I don’t think the bidding would be driven by today’s prices,” Bernhardt said in an interview Monday. “I don’t generally believe that decisions on whether or not to bid in a lease sale are really driven by the near-term dynamics.”

However, ...