The Chukchi shelf is believed to hold oil and gas reserves as high as . Several oil companies have competed for leases on the area, and on 6 February 2008, the U.S. government announced the successful bidders would pay US$2.6 billion for extraction rights. The auction drew considerable criticism from environmentalists. In May 2015, the Obama administration's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management gave a conditional approval for Shell Oil to drill in shallow ( deep) Chukchi Sea waters. In September 2015, Shell announced that it was ending its oil exploration in the region, citing tremendous cost and declining oil prices. Shell vowed to return, but eventually gave up all but one of the corporation's leases in the Arctic.
