In a big blow to Arctic exploration, Conoco's offshore-drilling program was put on hold.
Not long after Royal Dutch Shell and Russian Gazprom signed the memorandum on their Arctic Ocean drilling program, ConocoPhillips Alaska announced early Wednesday that an uncertain regulatory environment has forced the company to put the brakes on exploratory drilling it planned for next summer.
The news is consequential for Alaskans hoping new discoveries will replenish the dwindling flow in the trans-Alaska pipeline, the 800-mile long corridor shipping black crude that funds most state government services.
The announcement means there may be little oil activity on Alaska's outer-continental shelf this summer, in part because other companies, including Norwegian oil giant Statoil, have followed the lead of Shell and Conoco.
ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational energy corporation with its headquarters located in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas in the United States. It is the world's largest independent pure-play exploration & production company.
In the year 2007 Conoco Phillips became the first U.S. oil company to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an alliance of big business and environmental groups. Today, it is a signatory participant of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.
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