ConocoPhillips looks to ‘Willow West’ in Reserve
New NPR-A order would reverse previous policies ConocoPhillips is beginning to look west in the National Petroleum Re- serve-Alaska from its Willow project in the northeast NPR-A. There are new prospects out there, the company said. “We’re putting ourselves in a po - sition to continue exploring west of Willow,” the company’s Senior Vice President, Kirk Johnson, told in- vestment analysts at ConocoPhillips’ fourth quarter earnings call in Febru- ary. President Donald Trump’s execu - tive orders on oil and gas, and Alaska and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) in particular, have been encouraging, Johnson said. Con- ocoPhillips already has one discovery in its federal leases in the petroleum reserve that it calls, with optimism, “Willow West.” There also are discoveries by other companies farther west. Trump’s NPR-A order is expected to reverse the restrictive NPR-A land regulations put in place in 2024 by former Interior Secretary Deb Haa- land under the Biden Administration. A provision in the rules allowing pro- tected areas in the petroleum reserve to be reviewed every five years and possibly enlarged, and with new ones created, has been a major concern for the industry. Haaland had proposed new and en- larged areas just before leaving office. Those will not happen now. However, turning back the land regulations has procedural complexities that will take time and perhaps a new Supplemen- tal Environmental Impact Statement.
Photos Courtesy ConocoPhillips Alaska ConocoPhillips has multiple projects underway, including a new deposit in Kuparuk, Coyote, which the company plans will be brought into production in 2025.
That could take two years and likely will be longer since litigation is a cer- tainty. The NPR-A has seen other discov- eries besides Willow in recent years, but restrictive land policies going back several years, and several presidents, have impeded further drilling to con- firm reserves. One is a find by FEX, a subsidiary of Talisman Energy, which made a series of discoveries west of Willow near the northern coast of the petroleum reserve. Confirmation wells were drilled but the all-import- ant flow tests, which determine how much oil can actually be produced, could never be done because of U.S. Bureau of Land Management rules. Another encouraging discovery in state of Alaska-owned submerged lands in shallow Beaufort Sea waters off the NPR-A coast also was made by a small, Texas-based independent, but raising money for further explo- ration was impeded by the difficulties in securing onshore pipeline routes that would allow any oil produced
to be moved across the reserve onto state lands and transported further to the Trans Alaska Pipeline System at Prudhoe Bay. Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips’ John - son was bullish on progress in Willow construction during the earnings call. “The mobilization for the winter construction season, our largest, has gone exceptionally well,” Johnson said. “Ice roads were built as well as bridges. Operations modules moved to the North Slope by sea last summer were being moved overland in De- cember and January. The company is expecting to spend $500 million more in this winter season than it did last winter,” he said. Project employment is much high- er than last year, too, at about 2,400, about twice that of 2024. Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips also will continue work on its new Nuna project in the Kuparuk River field, which came on line in December. Nuna is the first new operations pad in the Kuparuk field in more than a decade. Eight
more production well are planned at Nuna on top of 10 drilled previously, there, ConocoPhillips’ Alaska Presi - dent Erec Isaacson said. A new deposit in Kuparuk, Coyote, also will be brought into production in 2025. In addition, a new pad with four wells has been added at West Sak, the viscous oil project in Kuparuk that has been producing for several years. Australia-based Santos, Ltd. is also busy with its Pikka project being de- veloped with its partner Repsol, a ma- jor company based in Madrid. Pikka’s phase one is requiring a $3.2 billion investment. As of early spring, 15 of 45 production wells for Pikka have been drilled. The major goal for this winter is to complete the installation of 120 miles of pipeline, which will al- low the startup of production of phase one in spring 2026 at 80,000 barrels per day at peak. About 2,200 contract workers are employed at Pikka this winter.
— Tim Bradner
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