U.S. Interior Department Issues Final Review of ConocoPhillips’ Alaska Oil, Gas Project

The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management on Aug. 14 issued a final environmental review for ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.’s proposed Willow Master Development Plan, an oil and gas development project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

The project is expected to produce up to 590 million total barrels of oil during its 30-year life. With processing capacity of 200,000 barrels per day, the project’s peak production is estimated at more than 160,000 barrels of oil per day.

The agency’s preferred alternative incorporates changes to reduce impacts based on input from tribal governments, cooperating agencies, and other stakeholders in response to the draft review. The alternative allows the company to build up to five drill sites and associated processing and support facilities. The project would help offset declines in production from the North Slope oil fields and contribute to the local, state, and national economies.

The project is designed build the infrastructure necessary to facilitate the production and transportation of federal oil and gas resources under leaseholds in the northeast area of NPR-A. The overall purpose is to produce, process, and transport commercial quantities of liquid hydrocarbons to market via pipeline from the Willow reservoir. The project would be located on the North Slope of Alaska, with the majority of the proposed facilities on leased federal lands within NPR-A’s northeastern region.