Bloomberg: When Jerry Otto started hunting for Alaskan oil in 1980, his tractor-trailers barreled along ice roads as much as 10 feet thick for 180 days every year.
Last winter, when he set out to drill 80 miles south of the Arctic Ocean for Australias Linc Energy Ltd. (LNC), regulators opened the roads for 126 days. The rest of the time, warm weather left the routes too mushy for vehicles, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its November issue.
Then in January, in a twist that embodies the perplexing...