New NPR-A order would reverse previous policies ConocoPhillips is beginning to look west in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska from its Willow project in the northeast NPR-A. There are new prospects out there, the company said. “We’re putting ourselves in a position to continue exploring west of Willow,” the company’s Senior Vice President, Kirk Johnson, told investment analysts at ConocoPhillips’ fourth quarter earnings call in February. President Donald Trump’s executive orders on oil and gas, and Alaska and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) in particular, have been encouraging, Johnson said. ConocoPhillips already has one discovery in its federal leases in the petroleum reserve that it calls, with optimism, “Willow West.” There also are discoveries by other companies farther west. Trump’s NPR-A order is expected to reverse the restrictive NPR-A land regulations put in place in 2024 by former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland under the Biden Administration. A provision in the rules allowing protected areas in the petroleum reserve to be reviewed every five years and possibly enlarged, and with new ones created, has been a major concern for the industry. Haaland had proposed new and enlarged areas just before leaving office. Those will not happen now. However, turning back the land regulations has procedural complexities that will take time and perhaps a new Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. ConocoPhillips looks to ‘Willow West’ in Reserve THE LINK: MARCH 2025 24
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