US to drill for oil in Alaska as Biden OKs $8B Willow Project, 180K barrels a day
By Mark Moore
March 13, 2023 1
The Biden administration on Monday approved a massive oil drilling project in Alaska that is sure to put the president on a collision course with far-left factions of his Democratic Party.
The Willow Project has come under fire from environmental groups, who are already accusing President Biden of reneging on campaign promises to battle climate change and end drilling on public lands.
Some Republicans, meanwhile, lauded the move by Team Biden to finally do something to offset the rising cost of gasoline and start to make the US energy-independent.
Under the plan announced by the Department of the Interior, Houston-based ConocoPhillips can drill at three sites on Alaska’s North Slope — about 219 wells in all — but the federal agency denied the company’s proposal for another two sites.
ConocoPhillips, which is seeking to develop oil and gas leases it purchased in the 1990s, will also have to give up rights to about 68,000 acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
The $8 billion Willow Project, according to the company, could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day and create as many as 1,800 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, as well as generating billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenues for the state and federal government.
While the project enjoyed widespread support in Alaska, it has been the subject of an aggressive social media campaign by environmental groups.
Biden to sign off on $8 billion oil drilling project in Alaska: reports
The Biden administration has also been under increasing political pressure to ramp up domestic energy production after historic highs in gasoline prices.
The Natural Resources Defense Counsel said in a Twitter posting that it would continue to fight against the project.
”It’ll escalate the climate crisis and lock us into decades of dependence on Big Oil executives hell-bent on destroying the planet. The fight isn’t over and we will consider every tool available to stop this climate bomb,” the organization said.
Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in a statement that by giving the Willow Project the green light, the Biden administration has “made it almost impossible to achieve the climate goals they set for public lands.”
The environmental group also addressed the administration’s attempt on Sunday to offset the blowback it would receive for approving the ConocoPhillips plan by preventing or limiting oil drilling in 16 million acres in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.
“While we celebrate the administration’s unparalleled protections for Alaskan landscapes and waters, the decision to approve the Willow Project may very well wipe out many of these climate and ecological benefits,” Jealous said.
“And by approving one of the largest oil and gas extraction projects on federal public lands, one must ask the question what the Biden administration has in store for the Arctic Refuge,” he said.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) called the Willow Project “critically important” to the state’s economy and national security.
“Producing much-needed American energy in Alaska with the world’s highest environmental standards and lowest emissions enhances the global environment,” Sullivan said in a statement.
Alaska’s other GOP senator, Lisa Murkowski, said approval of the project is a “huge and needed victory for all Alaska.”
”This project will produce lasting economic and security benefits for our state and the nation,” she said on Twitter.
By —Matthew Daly, Associated Press
By —Chris Megerian, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday it is approving the major Willow oil project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope, one of President Joe Biden’s most consequential climate choices that is drawing condemnation from environmentalists who say it flies in the face of the Democratic president’s pledges.
The announcement comes a day after the administration, in a big move toward conservation, said it would bar or limit drilling in some other areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.
READ MORE: Biden blocks other oil drilling in Alaska while considering Willow project
Biden’s Willow plan would allow three drill sites initially, which project developer ConocoPhillips has said would include about 219 total wells. A fourth drill site proposed for the project would be denied. The company has said it considers the three-site option workable.
Houston-based ConocoPhillips will relinquish rights to about 68,000 acres of existing leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Climate activists have been outraged that Biden appeared open to greenlighting the project, which they said put Biden’s climate legacy at risk. Allowing oil company ConocoPhillips to move forward with the drilling plan also would break Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil drilling on public lands, they say.
The administration’s decision is not likely to be the last word, with litigation expected from environmental groups.
ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenues for the federal, state and local governments, the company says.
The project, located in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, enjoys widespread political support in the state. Alaska Native state lawmakers recently met with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to urge support for Willow.
But environmental activists have promoted a #StopWillow campaign on social media, seeking to remind Biden of his pledges to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy.
Christy Goldfuss, a former Obama White House official who now is a policy chief at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said she was “deeply disappointed” at Biden’s decision to approve Willow, which NRDC estimates would generate planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to more than 1 million homes.
“This decision is bad for the climate, bad for the environment and bad for the Native Alaska communities who oppose this and feel their voices were not heard,” Goldfuss said.
Anticipating that reaction among environmental groups, the White House announced on Sunday that Biden will prevent or limit oil drilling in 16 million acres in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean. The plan would bar drilling in nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea — closing it off from oil exploration — and limit drilling in more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve.
The withdrawal of the offshore area ensures that important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears and other wildlife “will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development,″ the White House said in a statement.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, as part of an environmental review, advanced in February a development option for Willow calling for up to three drill sites initially, which it said would include about 219 total wells. ConocoPhillips Alaska said it considered that option workable.
Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators warned any further limits could kill the project, rendering it uneconomic.
Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with Biden and his advisers in early March to plead their case for the project, while environmental groups rallied opposition and urged project opponents to place pressure on the administration.
City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is closest to the proposed development, has been outspoken in her opposition, worried about impacts to caribou and her residents’ subsistence lifestyles. The Naqsragmiut Tribal Council, in another North Slope community, also raised concerns with the project.
But there is “majority consensus” in the North Slope region supporting the project, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, whose members include leaders from across much of that region.
READ MORE: Biden administration faces dilemma in conflict over major Alaska oil project
The conservation actions announced Sunday complete protections for the entire Beaufort Sea Planning Area, building upon President Barack Obama’s 2016 action on the Chukchi Sea Planning Area and the majority of the Beaufort Sea, the White House said.
Separately, the administration moved to protect more than 13 million acres within the petroleum reserve, a 23-million acre chunk of land on Alaska’s North Slope set aside a century ago for future oil production.
The Willow project is within the reserve, and ConocoPhillips has long held leases for the site. About half the reserve is off limits to oil and gas leasing under an Obama-era rule reinstated by the Biden administration last year.
Areas to be protected include the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay Special Areas, collectively known for their globally significant habitat for grizzly and polar bears, caribou and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.
Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice, welcomed the new conservation plan, but said if the Biden administration believes it has authority to limit oil development in the petroleum reserve, officials should extend those protections to the Willow site.
“They have the authority to block Willow,″ she said in an interview Sunday.
Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana contributed to this story.
Biden administration to limit oil leasing in Arctic amidst ConocoPhillips’ “Willow” oil project approval
Biden is expanding an Obama-era ban on new oil and gas leasing in U.S. Arctic waters and will write new rules barring the sale of new oil drilling rights across much of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where ConocoPhillips’s 600 million-barrel Willow venture is planned, the Interior Department said in a news release.
Environmentalists have been imploring the administration to go further and reject the ConocoPhillips oil project, citing International Energy Agency warnings that the world must forsake developing new oil and gas fields to avoid the worst consequences of global warming and shift to net zero emissions by 2050.
Senior Biden advisers have signed off on the Willow approval — one of the most significant environmental decisions yet for Biden, who campaigned on promises to shift away from fossil fuels. He also enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping climate law that dedicates more than $360 billion to clean energy and advanced manufacturing.
New restrictions intended for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska could thwart future oil and gas leasing across more than 13 million acres in the 23 million-acre site, which is roughly the size of Indiana.
The NPR-A was set aside for oil supply needs roughly a century ago and ConocoPhillips has held leases tied to its $8 billion Willow development since 1999. The Biden administration viewed that as limiting its options to stop or significantly curtail the Willow project, an administration official said.
Yet new conservation moves are seen by the administration as a firewall against future leasing and expanded oil development across much of the Arctic, the official added.
The offshore development limits, imposed under a once-obscure 1953 law, build on former President Barack Obama’s 2016 decision to block new oil and gas leasing across most U.S. Arctic waters. Biden will expand the ban by effectively preventing future oil and gas leasing across the remaining 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska.
The offshore leasing withdrawal “provides additional protections for Teshekpuk Lake, guarding against the potential that future Beaufort Sea oil and gas developments would seek to build onshore pipeline infrastructure into the NPR-A,” the Interior Department said in a news release.
Former President Donald Trump invoked the same 1953 law Biden is wielding now to rule out oil leasing in waters near Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas through mid-2032.
The Interior Department cast the actions as part of Biden’s work delivering “on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history,” after securing “record investments in climate resilience and environmental justice” and “reducing America’s reliance on oil.”
Environmentalists hailed the new conservation measures, but said they do nothing to make up for a potential approval of the Willow oil project.
While it would take years for crude to flow, ConocoPhillips eventually expects Willow to produce 180,000 bopd, or roughly 1.6% of current U.S. oil production.
Supporters have said that oil would be produced under stronger environmental protections than other crude supplies it could replace, helping boost U.S. energy security while providing an economic lifeline to Alaska’s North Slope.
Biden administration approves massive Willow oil project in Alaska
The Interior Department approved the project with three drill pads after saying last month it was concerned about the greenhouse gas impacts of Willow.
LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is approving a scaled-back version of ConocoPhillips’ $7 billion oil and gas drilling Willow project in Alaska, the U.S. Department of Interior said on Monday, drawing cheers from Alaska officials and the oil industry but criticism from environmental advocates.
The decision follows an aggressive eleventh-hour campaign from opponents who had argued the development of the three drill sites in northwestern Alaska conflicts with President Joe Biden’s highly publicized efforts to fight climate change and rapidly shift to cleaner sources of energy.
Alaska’s elected officials say the project will create hundreds of jobs and bring billions of dollars in revenue to state and federal coffers. The state relies heavily on revenue from oil production, but output has declined dramatically from its peak in the 1980s.
“I feel the people of Alaska have been heard,” U.S. Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat from Alaska, said on a call with reporters. “The state of Alaska cannot carry the burden of solving our global warming issues alone.”
The fate of the project has been closely watched by Alaska officials, the oil and gas industry and green groups as Biden seeks to balance his goals of decarbonizing the U.S. economy with calls to increase domestic fuel supplies to keep prices low.
The Interior Department approved the project with three drill pads after saying last month it was concerned about the greenhouse gas impacts of Willow. ConocoPhillips had sought to build up to five drill sites and project infrastructure including dozens of miles of roads and pipelines and seven bridges.
The agency said the smaller scope will reduce the impact on habitats for species like polar bears and yellow-billed loons.
The administration also announced late on Sunday sweeping new protections for Alaska lands and waters that would keep nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean “indefinitely off limits” for oil and gas leasing, effectively closing off U.S. Arctic waters to oil exploration. It also issued protections for 13 million acres of “ecologically sensitive” special areas within Alaska’s petroleum reserve.
Environmental groups, however, criticized the Biden administration, saying it was trying to have it “both ways” on climate change.
“Promoting clean energy development is meaningless if we continue to allow corporations to plunder and pollute as they wish,” Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said.
Green groups have said they would challenge the project in court. U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska said the congressional delegation is expecting an imminent legal challenge and is preparing an amicus brief to defend the project in court.
Houston-based ConocoPhillips welcomed Monday’s decision, having already endorsed the trimmed-down version of the project.
“This was the right decision for Alaska and our nation,” ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Ryan Lance said in a statement.
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, on Monday welcomed the “good news,” saying “this will mean jobs and revenue for Alaska” by bringing upwards of 180,000 barrels of oil per day into the Trans Alaska Pipeline.
Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Valerie Volcovici in Washington. Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Toby Chopra.
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