ConocoPhillips wasted no time beginning work on its controversial $8 billion Willow oil project in Alaska after President Joe Biden approved the venture.
(Bloomberg) — ConocoPhillips wasted no time beginning work on its controversial $8 billion Willow oil project in Alaska after President Joe Biden approved the venture.Â
Within hours of the administration announcing its green light Monday, the company started building ice roads inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to enable the movement of heavy equipment, according to a person familiar with the matter. ConocoPhillips expects to reach the site of a planned gravel mine and begin operations there as soon as Sunday, the person said.
The flurry of activity represents the US oil producer’s bid to make the most of a short seasonal opening for winter construction, when work can take place on frozen tundra. That window — tied to winter weather conditions — is expected to close within weeks.
Willow is set to produce almost 600 million barrels of oil. Although crude won’t flow from the site for years, the timing of drilling still depends on the infrastructure being built right now.
The activity, underpinned by a critical right of way grant and mineral sale contract that the Interior Department issued on Monday, also adds urgency to potential legal challenges by opponents of the project. Conservation and indigenous groups won an emergency order blocking ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. from opening a gravel mine site in 2021, after the Trump administration approved the project — an authorization later tossed out by a federal court.
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