Birds travel near a Prudhoe Bay facility. Several members of the Trump administration joined Sen. Dan Sullivan and Gov. Mike Dunleavy for a rally with North Slope workers and international visitors at Pump Station 1 of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System on June 2, 2025. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Hilcorp Alaska plans to build a new development in a western corner of Prudhoe Bay that will produce 40,000 barrels of oil daily, a company representative said.

Project Taiga will start by producing 25,000 barrels of oil daily in a first phase, with rates rising in a second phase, said Daniel Donovan, an asset team leader with Hilcorp.

The plans are among the steps the oil company is taking to squeeze more oil out of Prudhoe Bay, said Donovan, speaking recently at the annual Alaska Oil and Gas Association conference in Anchorage.

The largest oil field in North America, Prudhoe Bay remains the major contributor to Alaska oil production, which fell to 465,000 barrels on the North Slope last year, from close to 500,000 a year earlier.

Hilcorp, a privately owned company based in Houston, Texas, took over the operation of Prudhoe Bay in 2020, acquiring BP’s portion of the field.

Project Taiga is expected to begin producing oil in early 2028, according to Donovan’s presentation.

It will represent a $1 billion investment through 2030, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, an industry group with Hilcorp as a member.

The first phase of Project Taiga would operate from a new gravel pad on the tundra called Omega, Donovan said.

Hilcorp applied with the state earlier this summer for approval of the pad, which will be home to the wells and other facilities.

Just over 50 wells will be built at Omega, Donovan said.

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“This is a huge, huge project,” Donovan said.

“It’s really exciting for me when a field that’s coming up on its 50-year anniversary of first oil” still has running room, he said of Prudhoe Bay.

Applying lessons learned

Hilcorp is optimistic about Project Taiga thanks to its work at Milne Point, a field it purchased in 2014 that’s north of Project Taiga, he said.

The company has tripled production at Milne Point over the decade to around 50,000 barrels of oil daily, a figure that can increase by another 10,000 barrels, he said. The company has invested $2.5 billion at Milne Point, he said.

The growth occurred because the company has pioneered a technology known as polymer flooding on the North Slope, in partnership with the University of Alaska, according to Donovan’s presentation.

Polymer flooding uses polymers to increase the viscosity of water that’s used to push oil to the surface. The heavier liquid enhances production of heavy viscous oil that can’t easily be budged. That kind of oil is found at the Schrader Bluff reservoir, at Milne Point and Project Taiga, and elsewhere on the Slope.

Donovan said Hilcorp is hoping to create another “mini-Milne Point” at its new fields, Oooguruk and Nikaitchuq.

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Hilcorp purchased the fields from Italian oil company Eni last year for $1 billion. Together they produce about 22,000 barrels of oil daily.

In addition to other work on the North Slope, Hilcorp is also planning to spend $180 million to drill a well at the Point Thomson field, on the North Slope’s eastern frontier, near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

A single well might not seem like a big deal, he said. But it is at Point Thomson, where Hilcorp took over operations from ExxonMobil in 2022, he said.

The field is known for high-pressure natural gas that complicates oil production. It has yielded only small amounts of oil since ExxonMobil developed it close to a decade ago with significant financial support from the state.

The field produces a little over 4,000 barrels of oil daily, far below expectations of potentially 70,000 barrels of oil daily.

Donovan said a well hasn’t been drilled at Point Thomson since 2015. This one will be completed in 2026, producing about 6,000 barrels of oil daily and more than doubling the field’s output.

“It’s a big logistical challenge as much as a subsurface challenge,” he said, requiring a special drilling rig, construction of an ice road, and barging equipment over in the summer.

The company this summer completed “turnaround” projects at Prudhoe Bay last summer designed to maintain the field’s longevity, Donovan said.

The “turnaround” effort was the largest of its kind for Hilcorp at Prudhoe Bay, according to a statement from Hilcorp Alaska spokesperson Matt Shuckerow.

It included work at Gathering Centers 1 and 2, where freshly produced crude oil is treated so it can be shipped in pipelines, he said.

Gathering Center 2, which handles 60,000 barrels of oil daily, was taken out of production for a month, Donovan said.

“Taking down 60,000 barrels a day is obviously a hit, but it was the right thing to do to make sure that we were prepared for the long haul,” Donovan said.

The turnaround required round-the-clock efforts from employees and hundreds of contractors, Shuckerow said.

“This 5-week planned turnaround at GC1 and GC2 – which included 76,000-man hours, hundreds of permits, various facility upgrades and maintenance projects – was completed safely and ahead of schedule,” the statement from Shuckerow said.

“This project was critical to future production and development at Prudhoe Bay and underscores Hilcorp’s deep commitment to the field,” he said.