The federal Bureau of Land Management this afternoon provided Petroleum News with a May 10 letter from ConocoPhillips Alaska requesting that the agency start the process of preparing an environmental impact statement for the company's proposed Willow master development plan.

Petroleum News had understood from sources outside BLM that the agency had received an application for Willow development, which was what this morning's news bulletin reported.

What the agency received was a letter requesting the beginning of the planning process for a possible future development.

The letter says the Willow master development plan includes a processing facility within the Bear Tooth unit in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, along with drill sites, access and infield roads, pipelines and other facilities.

"The existing processing facility at Alpine is not feasible for a tie-in of the Willow Development due to geophysical and technical constraints," the company said in the letter.

The company had said when it announced the Willow discovery that it was looking at two alternatives: processing through existing Alpine facilities or a standalone processing facility.

ConocoPhillips told the agency it understands that a notice of intent to initiate an EIS could be published in the Federal Register this July.

The company said in its letter that Willow would have an interrelated series of components constructed over an estimated 10-year period, and could include as many as five drill sites, a central processing facility, an infrastructure pad, gravel access roads, an airstrip, modular delivery via sealift barges, pipelines and a gravel mine.

- Petroleum News

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