Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

The renewed focus on energy security — and the acknowledgment that the world will continue to rely on hydrocarbons for decades to come — may be breathing new life into an often-overlooked U.S. production area: Alaska’s North Slope. The state’s crude oil output is down to its lowest level since before the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) came online in 1977. But now federal regulators are moving toward final approval for ConocoPhillips’s $8 billion Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve, and Australia’s Santos Ltd. and Spain’s Repsol have taken a final investment decision (FID) on the $2.6 billion first phase of their Pikka project between Willow and Prudhoe Bay. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss recent hydrocarbon-related developments in America’s Last Frontier.

It’s been a challenging few years — some would say decades — for producers in northern Alaska. Crude oil production in the remote, frigid region peaked at just over 2 MMb/d in 1988 and has been falling ever since, dropping to about 450 Mb/d in 2020 and the first few months of 2021. It’s not that Alaska is running out of oil; far from it. Instead, the state’s energy industry has been battered by competition from shale producers in the Lower 48, thwarted by federal policies, and, more recently, ESG-related concerns and the Biden administration’s efforts to put the kibosh on new federal leases. Despite it all, the few producers still active in Alaska hold out hope for a revival. Today, we discuss the many hurdles that northern Alaska producers face.