Oil giant ConocoPhillips announced Wednesday that it’s shutting down its drill rigs on the remote North Slope oil fields, and placing them into long-term storage, to protect its employees and contractors during the coronavirus pandemic.
North Slope
Update: Alaska AG says North Slope Borough can’t ‘commandeer’ Ravn’s North Slope assets
In an emergency order signed Sunday by Mayor Harry Brower, the borough says that under its authority during a disaster declaration, it is “commandeering” all of Ravn’s “hangars, equipment, operations manuals, parts, supplies, vehicles, (and) airplanes.”
ASRC, Alaska’s largest private employer, cuts jobs after coronavirus causes oil price collapse
Alaska’s largest private-sector employer, Arctic Slope Regional Corp., has laid off employees and cut charitable giving due to the collapse in oil prices and the economic shutdown caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.
Will the oil price crash disrupt the BP-Hilcorp deal? Alaska state regulators want to know.
State regulators have asked Hilcorp, the independent oil company buying BP’s Alaska assets, to disclose whether and how the pandemic-driven crash in oil prices will affect its ability to seal the $5.6 billion deal.
Dozens of Alaska villages to lose air service as Ravn announces huge cuts
Alaska’s largest rural air carrier, RavnAir Group, says it’s cutting its service by 90% amid a coronavirus-driven crash in revenue — a move that could leave dozens of rural villages with deeply diminished air service.
Prudhoe Bay worker tests positive for COVID-19, BP says
Oil and gas company BP confirmed Tuesday that a worker at Prudhoe Bay has tested positive for COVID-19.
Already low price for Alaska crude oil falls further as the world responds to coronavirus
The price of U.S. and global benchmarks are both below $40 per barrel. The COVID-19 pandemic is driving some of the recent decline, but prices were low even before the outbreak.
Oil companies are screening employees for fever before flying them up to Alaska’s North Slope
The companies met last week and agreed to start screening all of their workers when they check in in Anchorage.
Hilcorp revived this declining North Slope oil field. Can it do the same for Prudhoe Bay?
While many North Slope fields are on the decline, production at Hilcorp’s Milne Point has actually increased by huge amounts. Now the company is acquiring the massive Prudhoe Bay field, raising hopes of a similar revival there.
Kaktovik is crawling with polar bears. Now a man is going to prison for wasting one.
The case shows how it’s become common for polar bears to disrupt village life in Kaktovik, which sits on an island at the edge of the Beaufort Sea. As climate change melts sea ice and drives the bears ashore, residents say they’ve been under increasing stress.