Do oil companies really want to drill in ANWR?

When the U.S. Senate voted to open up oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of its tax cut legislation last month, it was a bet oil companies were willing to brave the harsh conditions and short drilling season of northern Alaska.

But if the recent history of another patch of oil rich federal land not far from ANWR - the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska - is any indication, they could be in for a long wait.

When the Department of Interior held a lease sale for the petroleum reserve last month, only 1 percent of the 10.3 million acres offered received bids - in total they came to $1.2 million.

For ANWR, the Senate is hoping to reap $1.1 billion over the next decade.

RELATED STORY: As Senate considers ANWR, oil companies' interest in question

How comparable the two fields are is something of a question mark.

After the poor lease sale, Kara Moriarty, director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, told the Associated Press drawing comparisons to ANWR was unsound and said the refuge held tenfold the oil and gas deposits of the petroleum reserve.

"They may both be in Alaska, but the reserve estimates are night and day," she said.

But then late last month, on the same day President Donald Trump signed the tax bill, the Department of Interior released findings that the petroleum reserve and surrounding lands contained 8.7 billions barrels of crude - more than five times what they estimated in 2010.

That brings it close to the levels scientists believe are contained within ANWR. The most recent U.S. Geological Survey in 1998 put ANWR's reserves at between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of crude.

"That's a boatload of oil," said Niel Lawrence, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The industry likes to open up land and lock it up. But that doesn't mean they'll produce on it."

did so with the expectation the sales would generate $1.1 billion in revenue over the next ten years.