Alaska Beat

Permit in hand, Conoco says its NPR-A site will produce oil by 2015

Now that it has a vital permit to cross the Colville River, ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. hopes to build its long-awaited CD-5 project in 2014, with production set for 2015, according to an article in the Alaska Journal of Commerce.

If successful, the project will produce the first oil from the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, created in 1923.

Conoco plans to seek corporate approval of the $600 million project next year, and then will spend about a year in engineering and planning, the article said.

Expected production is between 10,000 barrels and 18,000 barrels per day. Production royalties would be split 50-50 between the state and Arctic Slope Regional Corp., which owns the subsurface mineral rights.

Conoco and minority partner Anadarko Petroleum Co. recently won a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to allow a bridge to be built over a channel of the Colville River. The bridge would carry a pipeline and allow other discoveries to be developed, too.

Read more here.

Alex DeMarban

Alex DeMarban is a longtime Alaska journalist who covers business, the oil and gas industries and general assignments. Reach him at 907-257-4317 or alex@adn.com.

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