The US Department of Interior (DOI) has approved ConocoPhillips' oil drilling Willow project, located in the National Petroleum Reserve of the US state of Alaska (NPR-A) and which is expected to produce 180 kb/d of oil at its peak (10.5 Mt/year). The project is projected to bring between US$8bn to US$17bn in revenue for the US federal government and the state of Alaska.
However, the DOI reduced the size of the project by denying two of the five drill sites proposed by ConocoPhillips, reducing the project’s drill pads by 40%. The company will also relinquish rights to about 68,000 acres of its existing leases in the NPR-A, including 60,000 acres in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area. This will reduce the project’s freshwater use and eliminate all infrastructure related to the two rejected drill sites, including approximately 18 km of roads, 32 km of pipelines, and 133 acres of gravel.
The US government has also announced steps to limit future industrial development in the NPR-A, notably the designation of approximately 2.8 million acres in the Arctic Ocean nearshore the NPR-A as indefinitely off limits for future oil and gas leasing.