Hitting 'Reset': Despite difficult year, future is bright for oil production in Alaska.

• Author: Newman, Amy
• Position: OIL & GAS

ConocoPhillips is one of Alaska's most established oil development companies and its largest producer. The oil giant owns approximately 1.3 million net undeveloped acres on the North Slope, holds major ownership interests in Kuparuk and Prudhoe Bay, a 100 percent ownership interest in the Alpine field, and has an extensive inventory of development projects that include Eastern NEWS in the Kuparuk Field, Narwhal in the Western North Slope, and the Nuna discovery east of the Colville River.

Alongside that is what Nick Olds, senior vice president of global operations, called the company's "bread-and-butter development work" at an investor presentation in June, including the recently discovered Coyote trend at Kuparuk and the company's extended-reach drilling program in the Western North Slope.

But the company's size and dominance in Alaska weren't enough to inoculate it from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which last April forced ConocoPhillips to end its exploration and development projects in Alaska earlier than scheduled, remove workers from the North Slope, and bring operations down to critical function only.

"[Last year] was obviously a difficult year for society, a difficult year for our industry, a difficult year for the economy, and all the social aspects associated with the economy," ConocoPhillips Alaska President Erec Isaacson told attendees at the Resource Development Council's annual membership luncheon in June. "As we entered 2021, our focus was on safety and protecting our base assets, maintaining production, and minimizing decline."

That makes 2021 a "reset" year for the company, he added, one that so far seems to be working. Production for ConocoPhillips during the first quarter of 2021 was approximately 208,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with an average price of $60 per barrel and continuing to rise, Isaacson said.

That promising start, coupled with the company's numerous long-term opportunities, including Greater Moose's Tooth 1 and 2, the Alpine expansion and turnaround, and the Willow Development, makes ConocoPhillips Alaska poised to remain a competitive asset in the global oil and gas industry.

Hitting Reset in 2021

The oil and gas industry suffered collateral damage when the pandemic sent--and kept--the world indoors last year. According to the US Travel Association, spending on international, domestic, and business travel declined 42 percent from 2019, creating a domino effect: lack of travel meant a decline in the demand for oil, which in turn caused the price of oil to plummet to record lows. Those reductions, combined with efforts to mitigate the...