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ConocoPhillips prepares for Willow oil project in Alaska

Executives at ConocoPhillips are building an operation to last generations — with, perhaps, an eye toward even further expansion inside the reserve at a later date.

By New York Times

April 8, 2023

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NEW YORK TIMES

ConocoPhillips employees disembark at the Alpine oil drilling pad on Alaska’s North Slope on March 22. ConocoPhillips is the only company that is drilling inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, 23 million acres set aside in 1923 by the federal government as an emergency oil supply for the Navy.
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A ConocoPhillips plane carrying workers to drilling sites on Alaska’s North Slope, on March 22.
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A sign points to a ConocoPhillips ice road on Alaska’s North Slope, on March 22. The short winter construction season helps to make Alaska’s North Slope one of the most expensive places to drill for crude oil in the country.
4/20
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Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, the mayor of Nuiqsut and an opponent of the Willow project, on Alaska’s North Slope on March 22. Average temperatures in the Arctic are increasing about four times as fast as the rest of the globe, and the permafrost is thawing faster than expected.
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A ConocoPhillips oil drilling pad on Alaska’s North Slope on March 22.
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Oil pipelines leading from an oil drilling site on Alaska’s North Slope, on March 23. Oil from Willow is expected to help the 46-year-old Trans Alaska Pipeline, whose daily flow has dropped to fewer than a half-million barrels from two million barrels in 1988, a rate so slow that it leads to periodic buildup of ice and paraffin wax inside the pipeline.
7/20
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A ConocoPhillips ice road leading to Nuiqsut, Alaska on March 23. ConocoPhillips has about a month to take the first step in the Willow project, which is to open a gravel mine and construct a gravel road, before spring temperatures melt the ice roads, making the tundra swampy and impassable for construction vehicles.
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A ConocoPhillips oil drilling site glows in the distance in Nuiqsut, Alaska on March 23.
9/20
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George Sielak, a Kuukpik corporation board member, sits in his home in Nuiqsut, Alaska on March 23. Sielak, whose family resettled Nuiqsut when he was a child, said he had seen oil bring prosperity and jobs.
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A worker drives on a ConocoPhillips road that leads to drilling sites on Alaska’s North Slope on March 23.
11/20
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Caribou near ConocoPhillips oil pipelines, which are elevated to allow herds to pass beneath, on Alaska’s North Slope on March 24.
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A ConocoPhillips oil drilling site on Alaska’s North Slope on March 24. Scientists say nations must stop new oil and gas projects to avoid climate catastrophe. But after the Biden administration greenlit the $8 billion Willow project, ConocoPhillips is racing ahead.
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Workers remove cold weather clothing upon returning to the Kuukpik Corporation hotel, on Alaska’s North Slope on March 24. Willow will consist of as many as 199 wells spread across three drill sites, which the company believes could produce nearly 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years.
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Local youth play in the street in Nuiqsut, Alaska on March 24.
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Trucks and machinery at the ready, on Alaska’s North Slope on March 24. Although the Biden administration reduced the size of ConocoPhillips’s original plan, Willow will have a footprint of almost 500 acres and at its peak could generate about 180,000 barrels of oil a day.
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René Opie prepares caribou meat for jerky as her boyfriend, Sam Kunaknana, walks into the room at their home in Nuiqsut, Alaska on March 24. Kunaknana said the oil industry had hurt fishing, changed caribou migration patterns, made it harder to hunt and harmed the air quality in the village.
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Asisaun Toovak, the mayor of Utqiagvik, Alaska works on a pair of mukluk boots for her husband, at home on March 25.
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A community gym that was paid for by BP and ConocoPhillips, in Utqiagvik, Alaska on March 26. Oil revenues also are likely to help pay for a sea wall to protect Utqiagvik against the Arctic Ocean, which is fast encroaching because of climate change caused by burning oil and gas.
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A cemetery outside of Utqiagvik, Alaska on March 26. Few of Willow’s projected 2,500 construction jobs or 300 permanent jobs will go to area residents, in part because the work schedule interferes with the subsistence hunting and fishing that is central to the Inupiaq community here, several residents said.
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A street after sunset in the village of Utqiagvik, Alaska on March 26. Oil revenues also are likely to help pay for a sea wall to protect Utqiagvik against the Arctic Ocean, which is fast encroaching because of climate change caused by burning oil and gas.

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