(Bloomberg) -- ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp. were among oil companies that snapped up drilling leases in northern Alaska’s mammoth petroleum reserve in a record auction that drew $163 million in high bids.

The auction, the first in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve since 2019, saw companies submit about 430 bids across more than 1.3 million acres, indicating high interest in an area that was restricted during the Biden administration. Those restrictions were lifted late last year, and President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending bill mandated five lease sales in the reserve.

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“The results of today’s sale are historic,” said Kevin Pendergast, the state director for the US Bureau of Land Management in Alaska. “This is the strongest sale we have ever had in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, by nearly every measure.”

Repsol SA and Shell Plc, which bid jointly on many tracts, were the biggest winners with more than $91 million in bids, according to Interior Department data. Other top winners included ConocoPhillips, which bid on lease tracts adjacent to its existing Willow project, as well as North Slope Exploration LLC and Exxon.

Alaska’s 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a rugged landscape of tundra and wetlands roughly the size of Indiana, was set aside for oil and gas development following energy shortages in the 1970s. However, environmentalists say new industrial oil operations imperil wildlife, including caribou that calve nearby.

“The Western Arctic is not a commodity, it is one of the last truly wild places on Earth, home to millions of migrating birds, vast caribou herds, and Indigenous communities whose lives are woven into this land,” said Kristen Miller, executive director at Alaska Wilderness League. “We will spend every ounce of our energy making sure those leases never become drill pads.”

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