Conoco forecasts low, single-digit oil production growth this year

HOUSTON (Reuters) -ConocoPhillips on Wednesday said its full year oil and gas production could rise at a low-single digit percentage rate over last year, with stronger gains in the top U.S. shale oil field.

A final investment decision to proceed with a long-proposed Willow oil-development project in Alaska’s North Slope, could come this year, executives said on a conference call.

If final approvals are received, construction on the up to 600 million barrel holding in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve could begin this winter. Peak production at the field is forecast to be 180,000 bpd.

Conoco projected third-quarter output of between 1.7 to 1.76 million barrels of oil and gas per day (mboe), up from 1.69 million boed in the prior quarter. It lowered full-year production guidance to about 1.74 mboed.

Benefiting from the leap in natural gas pricing, Conoco said it plans to expanding its presence in liquefied natural gas through investment in proposed Qatar and U.S. Gulf Coast project LNG facilities proposed by Qatar Energy and Sempra Energy.

“We have a lot of capacity in the gas space, both LNG and ntural gas,” said Chief Executive Ryan Lance, “and we wanted to augment that with additional LNG liquefaction capacity.”

(Reporting by Gary McWilliams)