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The Explorers 2009: ConocoPhillips Alaska
ConocoPhillips, the largest producer in Alaska, dates back to the beginning of the modern Alaska oil industry in the 1950s and plays a role in almost every major trend in the Alaska oil industry. In the 1960s its predecessor company ARCO joined with Humble Oil to drill the Prudhoe Bay State No. 1, the Prudhoe Bay discovery well.
Over the past 30 years, ConocoPhillips and its predecessors have been the driving force behind westward expansion on the North Slope, bringing the Kuparuk River unit on line in 1981, the Colville River unit and its satellites on line starting in 1994, moving into the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska at the end of the decade, and making moves into territory much farther west, including offshore targets, in the 2000s. All the while, the company also became the largest natural gas producer in the Cook Inlet.
Most recently, ConocoPhillips announced several successful wells in the Greater Mooses Tooth unit in the NPR-A, which it hopes to bring on line in 2012. The company recently formed a neighboring Bear Tooth unit to protect acreage nearing expiration. After dropping its leases in the Beaufort Sea, ConocoPhillips’ major exploration focus is now a lease package in the Chukchi Sea, which the company hopes to start drilling as early as 2011. The company is also pursuing a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to southern markets with partner BP.
ConocoPhillips leases more than 400,000 acres of state land, as well as significant federal acreage both onshore and off. The company produced 244,000 barrels of oil per day and 97 million cubic feet of gas per day in Alaska in 2008.
Current exploration focus Northern Alaska — central North Slope: continued exploration drilling with Anadarko in the extreme northeast of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, seeking more satellite fields to hook into the Alpine field infrastructure. Involved in a joint project with the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate the possibility of producing natural gas from North Slope methane hydrate deposits in Northern Alaska — the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas outer continental shelf: has been gathering Chukchi Sea 3-D seismic data, doing well-site preparation work and is planning to drill in the Chukchi Sea Devil’s Paw prospect (formerly Klondike) in 2011.
Cook Inlet: development drilling in existing gas fields.
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