Smith Bay

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management recognizes the southeastern portion of Barrow Canyon, which covers some, but not all, of Smith Bay, as an Environmentally Important Area.

Bordered by barrier islands that separate the shallow, brackish waters from the Beaufort Sea, several slow-moving rivers flow into this region.

In 2015 and 2016, Caelus Energy Alaska drilled two exploration wells in the southern part of the bay, about 59 miles (95 km) southeast of Barrow.

[8] In October 2016, the company announced what it called a major oil discovery in the bay[9] and said it would drill a third well in January 2018 and proceed with permitting a pipeline afterwards.

[11] The 2016 oil discovery in the deeper Torok Formation of more than 1.0 billion barrels (160 million cubic meters) is less than 1 mile (1.6 km) offshore from the NPR-A.