U.S. president Joe Biden’s administration will approve a major project in Alaska on Monday according to informed sources.
According to Reuters the decision to approve of the project in Alaska will come a day after Biden had announced sweeping curbs on oil, as well as gas leasing to protect up to 16 million acres of land and water in the region.
The project is to have the name the Willow project and it will be led by ConocoPhillips, the energy giant, which is located in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
It also will have an area of 23 million acre in the northern slope of the state, as it will be the largest tract of undistributed public land in the U.S.
The project was announced in January 2017 and is expected to produce around 600 million barrels of oil over its life, according to ConocoPhillips, this is around 180,000 barrels per day.
The U.S. Interior Department on Sunday revealed actions to make around 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea “indefinitely off limits” for gas and oil leasing. This was due to an Obama-era ban and a closing off U.S. Arctic waters to oil exploration.
The Biden administration also said in a statement on Sunday that the government will implement methods of protection to protect around 13 million acres of special areas in terms of Alaska’s ecology in the Alaskan petroleum reserve.
This area includes Utukok Uplands, Kasegaluk Lagoon, Teshekpuk Lake, Colville River, and Peard Bay Special Areas.
The move towards approval come in the light of Biden’s goals of decarbonising the American economy and protecting pristine wilderness as the calls to increase domestic fuel supply rise to keep prices low.
Willow project has support from states officials and oil and gas industry. However, it is opposed by environmental groups who want to get rid of fossil fuels as soon as possible to combat climate change.
Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said about the project “protecting one area of the Arctic so you can destroy another doesn’t make sense, and it won’t help the people and wildlife who will be upended by the Willow project.”
