Decision on Willow oil project could come Monday, March 6

State officials and ConocoPhillips are awaiting a decision by the Biden administration on whether to give final approval for Willow, a major new project planned in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska west of the producing fields on the North Slope.

The decision could come as soon as Monday, March 6, at the end of a 30-day review period for a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement completed for Willow.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering a recommendation by the Bureau of Land Management, an Interior Department agency, for a development plan at Willow involving three production pads as well as related infrastructure.

Biden is under intense lobbying pressure from conservation groups to not grant final approval or to scale it down, for example to two production pads.

If that were to happen ConocoPhillips would not achieve its goal of 180,000 barrels per day with Willow, making the project uneconomic, the company has said.

According to reports the Interior Department has been working to negotiate a compromise on Willow with offers of new restrictions on Arctic offshore exploration as well as commercial fishing off southern Alaska coasts. However, opponents appear to be dug in against Willow, an onshore project, as a high-profile potential victory against a fossil fuel project in the Arctic.

If Biden rejects Willow or scales it back to become uneconomic the president risks alienating the influential Alaska congressional delegation, which includes Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a ranking Republican, as well as the state’s newly-elected Democratic congresswoman, Mary Peltola, an Alaska Native.

Alaska’s Legislature passed a resolution last week unanimously supporting Willow. It was sponsored by state Rep. Josiah Patkotak, an independent from Utiagvik, the major community on the North Slope. Patkotak is also Alaska Native.

If Willow, an $8 billion project, goes ahead it will begin production about six years following a final investment decision, or about 2029.

New production will be needed on the North Slope because while operators are holding output steady for now with incremental new projects, decline will inevitably set in.

North Slope fields had been declining steadily in recent years. For example in February 2018 slope production averaged 548,000 barrels per day, about 50,000 barrels per day below the February 2023 mark.

Field operators have harnessed a variety of new technologies like horizontal production wells to incrementally increase output in existing fields, but eventually companies will run through the list of small projects that can be accomplished and major new developments will needed like Willow and Pikka.

ConocoPhillips is planning new horizontal production wells drilled into Narwhal, a reservoir now being tapped from a drill site in the nearby Alpine field. The company intends to build a new production pad in Narwhal that would allow an expansion of output but plans for this are still being developed.

The company is also planning construction at Nuna, a known deposit in the Kuparuk River field, in summer, 2024