Today’s Key Takeaways: North Slope road dispute ended. Increase in AK Arctic jobs thanks to oil projects. Japan & South Korea see AKLNG as part of tariff deal. US Antimony expands Alaska Position.
OIL:
ConocoPhillips and Santos end dispute over road access to major oil field on Alaska’s North Slope
Alex DeMarban, Anchorage Daily News, April 8, 2025
An oil company developing a large field on Alaska’s North Slope has reached a deal with ConocoPhillips over the use of roads needed to access that field and other prospects.
Santos, the developer of the Pikka discovery, informed Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas in a letter last month that it had reached the agreement with ConocoPhillips, ending the yearslong dispute.
The controversy centered over 75 miles of gravel roads in ConocoPhillips’ Kuparuk River field. The road system is needed to reach the adjacent Pikka field.
Pikka is expected to produce 80,000 barrels of oil daily at peak production in the initial phase, helping boost long-sagging production in Alaska. The oil is scheduled to start flowing next year.
Santos, the parentcompany of Oil Search (Alaska), also said in its letter that it is dropping its fight against ConocoPhillips before the Alaska Supreme Court.
Job Numbers Rise in Alaska’s Arctic Thanks to Oil Projects
Tsvetana Paraskova, OilPrice.Com, April 8, 2025
The development of oil projects in Alaska’s North Slope and Arctic is boosting jobs growth in these areas more than the average for the state, according to the latest figures by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Job numbers jumped by 7% in the North Slope and Northwest Arctic regions last year, compared to broadly flat job numbers for the state of Alaska.
In Alaska’s north, ConocoPhillips is developing the Willow oil project, which was approved by the Biden Administration in 2023. The $8-billion project is expected to see peak production of 160,000 barrels of oil per day, beginning in 2029, according to 2020 estimates but since then, this has been revised up to a maximum of 180,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Australia-based Santos, for its part, is developing the Pikka project in the North Slope, with first oil expected next year. The pipeline for the Pikka project is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Santos has said about 80% of the workforce working on the Pikka project was hired from within the state of Alaska.
Apart from direct oil and gas jobs, the project developments are leading to jobs growth in other related industries, Dan Robinson, a researcher with the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, told Alaska Public Media.
The Trump Administration is looking to boost oil and gas exploration and production in Alaska. Last month, Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that the Bureau of Land Management would pursue steps to expand opportunities for exploration and development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The U.S. Administration and the state of Alaska are also courting investors from north Asia to invest in and commit to offtake deals for the planned $44-billion Alaska LNG export project.
GAS:
LNG deals with Japan, South Korea could reduce tariffs, U.S. officials hint
Ken Moriyasu, Nikkei Asia, April 9, 2025
Treasury secretary says energy financing, purchases would narrow trade deficit
A major energy deal involving U.S. liquefied natural gas with the likes of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan was in the works, Trump administration officials said Tuesday, hinting this could lead to a possible reduction of tariffs.
Speaking on CNBC, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said President Donald Trump will personally be involved in the negotiations to review tariffs country by country.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of back and forth,” he said, adding the outcome of the negotiations will depend on what the trading partners offer.
“For instance, there is talk of a big energy deal in Alaska where the Japanese and perhaps the Koreans, perhaps the Taiwanese, would provide — would take a lot of the offtake and provide financing for the deal,” he said.
Such a deal, where the Asian economies burdensome or most of the financing to build a pipeline from the Arctic gas fields in northern Alaska to the ice-free ports in the south, as well as commit to purchasing the gas produced, “not only would that provide a lot of American jobs, but it would narrow the trade deficit,” he said.
The pipeline would be 1,300-kilometers long and is estimated to cost $44 billion. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has said exports could begin by 2030 and the project could deliver about 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day.
Trump said on Truth Social that he had a “great call” with Han Duck-soo, South Korea’s acting president.
“We talked about their tremendous and unsustainable Surplus, Tariffs, Shipbuilding, large scale purchase of U.S. LNG, their joint venture in an Alaska Pipeline, and payment for the big time Military Protection we provide to South Korea,” he wrote.
A South Korean negotiating team is on a plane heading to the U.S., and “things are looking good,” the U.S. president said.
He said the talks are not limited to trade and tariffs but described it as an efficient “ONE STOP SHOPPING.”
China also wants to urgently make a deal, he added, “but they don’t know how to get it started. We are waiting for their call.”
In his first address of his second term to Congress in early March, Trump said Japan and South Korea will spend “trillions of dollars” to help build the Alaskan pipeline.
“My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our partner — with investments of trillions of dollars each being spent by them,” he said.
MINING:
US Antimony expands Alaska land position
Shane Lasley, North of 60 Mining News, April 8, 2025
Prepares to begin exploration and send test shipments to its antimony smelter in Montana.
United States Antimony Corp. April 7 announced the expansion of its antimony-gold claims near Fairbanks, Alaska, and in the Maclaren River area south of the Alaska Range.
Last summer, the critical minerals-focused company that owns an antimony smelter in Montana began building a portfolio of claims in Alaska enriched with antimony, copper, gold, silver, and other minerals.
The company recently expanded its Alaska land position with a new lease and option agreement for lands adjacent to previously acquired properties in the Fairbanks Mining District. Coupled with the staking of an additional 18 claims, United States Antimony has expanded its antimony-prospective landholding in the Fairbanks area to 8,998 acres.
The company said this expanded land package will be the initial target of 2025 exploration slated to get underway in May, weather permitting.
Rodney Blakestad, vice president of the mining division at U.S. Antimony, will be leading the company’s Alaska programs.
Blakestad, a graduate of University of Alaska, Fairbanks, is an economic geologist with over 45 years of experience in the hard rock mining space, including 20 in Alaska.