ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — ConocoPhillips has approved funding for a $900 million drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope.
The Alaska Dispatch News reports that when production begins in 2018 at the filed in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska — an Indiana-sized Arctic reserve — the project is expected to yield 30,000 barrels of oil daily at its peak.
Production would be the first time oil has flowed from federal lands on the reserve. The Bureau of Land Management oversees the reserve and is working on a broad management plan in the area.
The BLM permitted the project last month, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a federal wetlands permit in January.
The project will receive a tax incentive through the “new oil” portion of the state’s tax regime passed in 2013.