Page 11 - NorthAmOil Week 33 2021

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Judge overturns approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow project
ALASKA
A federal judge has overturned the US govern- ment’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ proposed Willow oil project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), citing issues with the company’s environmental analysis for the plan.
Alaska District Court Judge Sharon Gleason said she was vacating the US Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) approval of the develop- ment in part because the agency had failed to include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from foreign oil consumption in its environmental analysis. It also “failed to adequately analyse a reasonable range of alternatives” for the project, she wrote.
Additionally, Gleason said that the US Fish and Wildlife Service had not outlined specific measures to mitigate the project’s impact on polar bears.
The ruling comes less than three months after the administration of US President Joe Biden said it would not oppose Willow in court. The government said it was satisfied that regula- tors had properly followed environmental laws when former US President Donald Trump’s
administration approved the project.
The ruling comes as a new blow to Cono- coPhillips and its plans for Willow, which had already been delayed by a year owing to the court
case against the project.
ConocoPhillips spokespeople told media this
week that the company was reviewing the ruling and evaluating the options available to it. The company is expected to appeal against the deci- sion. However the Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic group, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, expects that the company would have to start the environmental review for the project all over again if it wishes to develop Willow.
“The project can’t move forward without a significant amount of redoing,” Bridget Psari- anos, a staff lawyer with Trustees for Alaska, which represented six clients in the case, includ- ing the Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, was quoted by the Washington Post as saying.
ConocoPhillips said in June that Willow could begin producing oil in 2027. The project is estimated to hold about 600mn barrels of recoverable oil and is expected to produce up to 180,000 barrels per day (bpd).™
The ruling comes less than three months after the administration of US President Joe Biden said it would not oppose Willow in court.
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