Work on hold: BLM Willow decision vacated, remanded to BLM, FWS

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Work at ConocoPhillips’s Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, put on hold after project approval by the Bureau of Land Management was appealed by plaintiffs including Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic and the Center for Biological Diversity, now faces further uncertainties following an Aug. 18 ruling by U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason.

The judge vacated the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s approval of the project, remanding it to BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“BLM’s exclusion of foreign greenhouse gas emissions in its alternatives analysis in the EIS was arbitrary and capricious,” Gleason said.

She ruled the agency “acted contrary to law insofar as it developed its alternatives analysis based on the view that ConocoPhillips had the right to extract all possible oil and gas from its leases,” and also “acted contrary to law in its alternative analysis for the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area insofar as it failed to consider the statutory directive that it give ‘maximum protection’ to surface values in that area.”

In vacating the Fish and Wildlife Service biologic opinion, Gleason said the incidental take statement “lacks the requisite specificity of mitigation measures for the polar bear” and the “take finding with respect to the polar bear is arbitrary and capricious.” Because of that, BLM’s reliance on the FWS opinion “is arbitrary and capricious.”

ConocoPhillips has faced development delays for NPR-A projects in the past. Its development of CD5, the fifth Alpine drill site, began with a memorandum of understanding the company signed with BLM in 2003. The work involved a bridge across the Nigliq Channel of the Colville River as part of the plan for CD5, the company’s first drilling pad in NPR-A. First the company had to overcome objections from the local groups, and then had its plans challenged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. An agreement was finally reached in late 2011 and ConocoPhillips sanctioned CD5 in late 2012; construction began in early 2014 and production in 2015.

In a June 30 market update, ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Ryan Lance, asked about issues with Willow approvals said, “this isn’t unusual for Alaska. Just about every major project up there has gone through this, so we know what’s coming, we planned for it, and we know how to deal with it.”

See full story in Aug. 29 issue.

- KRISTEN NELSON