Alaska Resources • Advocacy
Alaska's Gold and Oil:
From American Companies
to Foreign Corporations
The companies extracting Alaska's irreplaceable wealth have changed. Have Alaskans noticed?
When Prudhoe Bay was discovered in 1968, American companies developed it. Atlantic Richfield. Humble Oil — later part of Exxon. Standard Oil of California. Mobil. Texaco. Outside money, yes — but American outside money. The profits went to shareholders in New York, Los Angeles, and Houston.
When Fairbanks gold was dredged for decades through the mid-1960s, an American company did it — USS&M, the United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company. The name says it all. American company. American shareholders. From 1928 to 1965, their dredges pulled 4.2 million ounces of gold out of Alaska's interior.
That was then.
Who's Drilling Alaska's Oil?
North Slope • Oil • Now Producing
Santos & Repsol — Pikka Project
Australia's Santos (51%, operator) and Spain's Repsol (49%) own the biggest new oil development on the North Slope. Target: 80,000 barrels per day — roughly 20% of Alaska's entire oil output. Santos told its shareholders the project will "underpin stronger shareholder returns into the future." Those shareholders are in Sydney and Madrid.
The Pikka Project just came online in 2026. It is Alaska's most significant new oil development in a generation. It is majority-owned and operated by an Australian company.
Who's Mining Alaska's Gold?
Delta Junction • Gold • Record Production
Northern Star Resources — Pogo Mine
Alaska's second-largest gold mine, owned by an Australian company headquartered in Perth. Pogo produced nearly 280,000 ounces of gold in 2024. At today's gold prices — above $5,000 an ounce — that's over a billion dollars of gold per year from a single mine. Northern Star's CEO told investors that Pogo "will be generating strong U.S. dollar cash flow for the next decade plus." That cash flows to Australia.
Fairbanks • Gold • Alaska's Largest Mine
Kinross Gold — Fort Knox Mine
Alaska's largest gold mine, 20 miles north of Fairbanks, owned by a Canadian company headquartered in Toronto. Fort Knox accounted for roughly 39% of Alaska's entire gold production in 2024. Since 1996, it has produced nearly 10 million ounces of gold.
"The two biggest gold mines in Alaska are owned by companies in Perth and Toronto. The biggest new oil project is owned by companies in Sydney and Madrid."
What Are Alaskans Getting Back?
Royalties. Taxes. Some jobs — many of them filled by rotating workers from Outside. And a Permanent Fund Dividend that has been shrinking and uncertain for years while foreign shareholders collect record profits from Alaska's ground.
In 2024, gold averaged $2,400 an ounce. In 2025, it averaged $3,400. Today it's above $5,000. Northern Star and Kinross are having the best years in their corporate histories — on Alaska gold. The PFD has not kept pace.
Alaska's nonrenewable resources — oil, gold, minerals — leave the ground once. They don't come back. Every barrel Santos ships from Valdez, every ounce Northern Star pulls from Pogo, is gone forever.
The Shift That Nobody's Talking About
This isn't about shutting down development. Alaska needs investment, and resource development supports real jobs and real communities. But the historical shift matters.
In the early 1970s, when BP — a British company — moved onto the North Slope, it felt compelled to operate through an American subsidiary called Sohio. Why? Because there were real political sensitivities about how a foreign company would be perceived in Washington, where important pipeline decisions were being made. Even Britain knew it needed to obscure its foreign ownership to be politically acceptable in Alaska.
Nobody hides anything today. Australian and Canadian corporations operate openly as Alaska's dominant resource extractors, and Alaska's political establishment cheers them on.
Alaskans have become coupon clippers on their own land — collecting a modest cut while foreign shareholders capture the real wealth created by Alaska's irreplaceable resources.
The Ask Is Simple
Higher royalties tied directly to a larger Permanent Fund Dividend. When foreign companies profit from Alaska's nonrenewable wealth, every Alaskan should share in that windfall — transparently and directly. Alaska's resources belong to Alaskans. The companies extracting them, wherever they're headquartered, should reflect that in what they pay.
It's time to renegotiate the deal.
Topics: Alaska Economy • Resource Development • Permanent Fund • Foreign Investment • North Slope • Gold Mining
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