ConocoPhillips Alaska: corporate citizenship at its best.

• Author: Kalytiak, Tracy
• Position: ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY'S 2010 CORPORATE 100

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Four days before an avalanche claimed his life, Jim Bowles said serving as president of ConocoPhillips Alaska was the best assignment of his career.

"We're a very important piece of ConocoPhillips," Bowles said. "It's a fun place to work--lots of great people, lots of challenges."

ConocoPhillips Alaska, under Bowles' leadership since October 2004, is again this year named to the Alaska Business Monthly Corporate 100, a prestigious listing of the state's top 100 companies.

The company employs approximately 1,100 people in Alaska. Its net income in Alaska in 2009 was $1.5 billion, compared to $2.3 billion in 2008.

Bowles, in his last media interview, talked about challenges and opportunities ahead, including ConocoPhillips' joint-venture natural gas pipeline with BP; lengthening the life of its oil fields; plans to explore Chukchi Sea hydrocarbon resources; the economic downturn; and what the company is doing to cut costs while enhancing safety.

PIPELINE PROGRESS

Bowles seemed excited about the prospect of ConocoPhillips and BP going to open season this month on their 1,730-to 2,000-mile open-access natural-gas pipeline project. The pipeline is expected to deliver more than 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the North Slope to markets in Alaska, Canada and the Lower 48.

"We jointly kicked that off about two years ago, Denali, and that's advanced to a large degree," Bowles said.

Denali invested more than $130 million between mid-2008 and January 2010 on such things as fieldwork, engineering and stakeholder engagement.

Open season is a process in which the pipeline company seeks customers to make firm, long-term transportation commitments. BP and ConocoPhillips must obtain Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and National Energy Board certification before proceeding with construction.

KEEPING OLD FIELDS IN PLAY

ConocoPhillips is employing a two-prong approach to extend the life of its 30-year-old Kuparuk field.

First, Bowles said, the company is using coiled-tubing drilling to recover more oil than the company otherwise would have recovered.

And, it is extracting about 16,000 barrels a day of heavy oil--a type of crude that has higher viscosity and density than light crude oil--from its West Sak oil field, Bowles said.

ConocoPhillips has added two satellite fields--Fiord and Nanuq--to its Alpine field. Those fields are producing about 35,000 barrels a day, and the company is trying to add a third field, CD5...