Conoco-Phillips Plans New Well in Alaska National Petroleum Reserve

(Reuters) -ConocoPhillips has applied for permits to develop a new field in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a vast unit of federal land that has yet to yield commercially produced oil, according to the federal agency managing the reserve.

ConocoPhillips applied to drill a production well at a site it calls GMT1, part of the Greater Mooses Tooth unit established in an area where its exploration wells struck oil, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) spokeswoman Erin Curtis said on Friday.

The company has also applied for a permit to build roads and other infrastructure needed to access the site, Curtis said.

A decision by senior corporate leaders on whether to sanction the project is expected in the second half of 2014, said Amy Burnett, a spokeswoman for ConocoPhillips in Alaska.

The Indiana-sized reserve, on the western side of the North Slope, was established in 1923 by President Warren Harding to provide fuel to the military.

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