File photo of an exploration site at ConocoPhillips’ Willow prospect.
(Photo by Judy Patrick / ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.)
March 21, 2026
Alaska Beacon
By Yereth Rosen
(Alaska Beacon) — Representatives of major oil field operators on Alaska’s North Slope said Thursday they are bullish on the region’s future as a major producer for decades to come. Their optimism was reinforced in part by a record-breaking oil and gas lease sale held this week by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
For ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s largest oil producer, the most prominent source of future development is the company’s massive Willow project, said Marc Lemons, the company’s Alaska vice president of development and execution.
“Willow is a once-in-a-generation project,” Lemons said in a presentation at Meet Alaska, an Anchorage conference held annually by the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, a trade organization.
Willow, a project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska on the western side of the North Slope, is set to tap into reserves estimated about 600 million barrels, with production peaking at 180,000 barrels a day, according to company estimates.
Lemons said the company is devoting $8.5 billion to $9 billion to Willow development. The project is about halfway to completion and on track to start producing oil in early 2029, he said.
Meanwhile, Lemons said, smaller projects will also boost North Slope output.
ConocoPhillips’ Nuna field started producing in 2024, with output that is now about 10,000 barrels a day but is expected to be double that in the future, he said. Next up for ConocoPhillips is boosted production at the neighboring Coyote field, where peak production is expected to be 13,000 barrels a day, he said. Another development, Narwal, is located near the large Alpine field, and ConocoPhillips continues to invest in its longstanding program to produce oil from West Sak, a reservoir within the Kuparuk region.
A busy exploration season is also underway to find the next generational project, he said.
“We have one of the largest exploration seasons planned in many years,” he said. It includes seismic surveys and drilling within the National Petroleum Reserve.
ConocoPhillips was one of the major participants in the just-completed federal lease sale held in the National Petroleum Reserve. The sale drew a record $163 million in high bids, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced on Wednesday.
Lemons said continued exploration in the petroleum reserve is a high priority for ConocoPhillips.
“Exploration is a 10- to 20-year play, and it is high risk,” he said. “But it’s necessary for the long-term stability of the North Slope.”
For Santos, an Australian company, the next expected milestone will be the startup this year of production at the huge Pikka field.
Pete Laliberte, Santos’ vice president of business development, said the first phase of Pikka’s development will tap into reserves of about 400 million barrels, with production peaking at 80,000 barrels per day.
Future phases of Pikka development are expected to tap into an even bigger resource, he said. “We’re just getting started” he said.
Laliberte said optimism about future North Slope oil prospects is seen in other companies’ actions.
The geologic feature called the Brookian Sequence, which includes the oil-bearing Nanushuk Formation, has been “driving the overall, like, renaissance on the Slope,” he said. Santos and other companies have shown they can be successful at drilling there, and the wider industry has taken notice, as demonstrated in the record National Petroleum Reserve lease sale.
“Right now, all of a sudden you’ve got a lot of international companies, and the big ones, taking notice of this and taking notice of the, and taking notice of the Brookian plays,” he said.
The Spanish company Repsol, which is Santos’ partner in Pikka, was one of the major bidders in the lease sale. In partnership with a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary, Repsol bid about $90 million in the sale, according to preliminary results.
For Hilcorp, the privately held independent energy company that since 2020 has been the operator of the Prudhoe Bay field, the concept of development expansion is different.
As company vice president Denali Kemppel described it to the Alliance audience, Hilcorp’s longstanding business strategy has focused on revival of old legacy fields that larger companies sell off.
That has been the case on the North Slope, where Hilcorp began acquiring assets and operator positions from BP since 2014. When BP departed the state in 2020, it sold all of its remaining Alaska assets to Hilcorp, including its share of Prudhoe and the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.
Although its assets are old, Hilcorp is in the midst of a renewal program that is boosting their output, Kemppel said.
Part of that program is a project reinvigorating the Prudhoe Bay field. Called Project Taiga, it is a collaboration between Hilcorp and the other Prudhoe partners, ConocoPhillips and
“It involves building new roads, building new pads, infrastructure,” she said. “And so when we think about Project Taiga, what we think about is potentially 150 to 200 new drill wells. We think about, potentially a billion barrels of oil.” She said that new oil will be potentially starting to flow in 2028.
Hilcorp has also demonstrated success at Milne Point, a BP-developed field that the smaller company began operating in 2014, Kemppel said.
Since Hilcorp took over, Milne Point’s production has tripled from 2014 levels, she said. “We think this is just a real success story for the North Slope,” she said.
The oil revenue and production forecast crafted by state officials reflects the companies’ optimism.
A revised forecast issued earlier this month by the Alaska Department of Revenue anticipates a significant increase in North Slope oil production in the coming year. Production that is expected to average 457,000 barrels per day for the 12 months ending on June 30 is expected to increase to an average 517,800 barrels per day for the coming fiscal year, largely because of Pikka’s startup, according to the forecast.
North Slope production is expected to rise to an average 678,800 barrels per day by fiscal year 2034, thanks in large part to both Pikka and Willow, according to the new forecast.
While expected 2034 production is much lower than the 2 million barrel-per-day peak achieved on the North Slope in 1988, it is higher than production in all the years since 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Alaska Beacon
Alaska Beacon is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government. Alaska, like many states, has seen a decline in the coverage of state news. We aim to reverse that.
Alaska Beacon
By Yereth Rosen
(Alaska Beacon) — Representatives of major oil field operators on Alaska’s North Slope said Thursday they are bullish on the region’s future as a major producer for decades to come. Their optimism was reinforced in part by a record-breaking oil and gas lease sale held this week by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
For ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s largest oil producer, the most prominent source of future development is the company’s massive Willow project, said Marc Lemons, the company’s Alaska vice president of development and execution.
“Willow is a once-in-a-generation project,” Lemons said in a presentation at Meet Alaska, an Anchorage conference held annually by the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, a trade organization.
Willow, a project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska on the western side of the North Slope, is set to tap into reserves estimated about 600 million barrels, with production peaking at 180,000 barrels a day, according to company estimates.
Lemons said the company is devoting $8.5 billion to $9 billion to Willow development. The project is about halfway to completion and on track to start producing oil in early 2029, he said.
Meanwhile, Lemons said, smaller projects will also boost North Slope output.
ConocoPhillips’ Nuna field started producing in 2024, with output that is now about 10,000 barrels a day but is expected to be double that in the future, he said. Next up for ConocoPhillips is boosted production at the neighboring Coyote field, where peak production is expected to be 13,000 barrels a day, he said. Another development, Narwal, is located near the large Alpine field, and ConocoPhillips continues to invest in its longstanding program to produce oil from West Sak, a reservoir within the Kuparuk region.
A busy exploration season is also underway to find the next generational project, he said.
“We have one of the largest exploration seasons planned in many years,” he said. It includes seismic surveys and drilling within the National Petroleum Reserve.
ConocoPhillips was one of the major participants in the just-completed federal lease sale held in the National Petroleum Reserve. The sale drew a record $163 million in high bids, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced on Wednesday.
Lemons said continued exploration in the petroleum reserve is a high priority for ConocoPhillips.
“Exploration is a 10- to 20-year play, and it is high risk,” he said. “But it’s necessary for the long-term stability of the North Slope.”
For Santos, an Australian company, the next expected milestone will be the startup this year of production at the huge Pikka field.
Pete Laliberte, Santos’ vice president of business development, said the first phase of Pikka’s development will tap into reserves of about 400 million barrels, with production peaking at 80,000 barrels per day.
Future phases of Pikka development are expected to tap into an even bigger resource, he said. “We’re just getting started” he said.
Laliberte said optimism about future North Slope oil prospects is seen in other companies’ actions.
The geologic feature called the Brookian Sequence, which includes the oil-bearing Nanushuk Formation, has been “driving the overall, like, renaissance on the Slope,” he said. Santos and other companies have shown they can be successful at drilling there, and the wider industry has taken notice, as demonstrated in the record National Petroleum Reserve lease sale.
“Right now, all of a sudden you’ve got a lot of international companies, and the big ones, taking notice of this and taking notice of the, and taking notice of the Brookian plays,” he said.
The Spanish company Repsol, which is Santos’ partner in Pikka, was one of the major bidders in the lease sale. In partnership with a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary, Repsol bid about $90 million in the sale, according to preliminary results.
For Hilcorp, the privately held independent energy company that since 2020 has been the operator of the Prudhoe Bay field, the concept of development expansion is different.
As company vice president Denali Kemppel described it to the Alliance audience, Hilcorp’s longstanding business strategy has focused on revival of old legacy fields that larger companies sell off.
That has been the case on the North Slope, where Hilcorp began acquiring assets and operator positions from BP since 2014. When BP departed the state in 2020, it sold all of its remaining Alaska assets to Hilcorp, including its share of Prudhoe and the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.
Although its assets are old, Hilcorp is in the midst of a renewal program that is boosting their output, Kemppel said.
Part of that program is a project reinvigorating the Prudhoe Bay field. Called Project Taiga, it is a collaboration between Hilcorp and the other Prudhoe partners, ConocoPhillips and
“It involves building new roads, building new pads, infrastructure,” she said. “And so when we think about Project Taiga, what we think about is potentially 150 to 200 new drill wells. We think about, potentially a billion barrels of oil.” She said that new oil will be potentially starting to flow in 2028.
Hilcorp has also demonstrated success at Milne Point, a BP-developed field that the smaller company began operating in 2014, Kemppel said.
Since Hilcorp took over, Milne Point’s production has tripled from 2014 levels, she said. “We think this is just a real success story for the North Slope,” she said.
The oil revenue and production forecast crafted by state officials reflects the companies’ optimism.
A revised forecast issued earlier this month by the Alaska Department of Revenue anticipates a significant increase in North Slope oil production in the coming year. Production that is expected to average 457,000 barrels per day for the 12 months ending on June 30 is expected to increase to an average 517,800 barrels per day for the coming fiscal year, largely because of Pikka’s startup, according to the forecast.
North Slope production is expected to rise to an average 678,800 barrels per day by fiscal year 2034, thanks in large part to both Pikka and Willow, according to the new forecast.
While expected 2034 production is much lower than the 2 million barrel-per-day peak achieved on the North Slope in 1988, it is higher than production in all the years since 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Alaska Beacon
Alaska Beacon is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government. Alaska, like many states, has seen a decline in the coverage of state news. We aim to reverse that.
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