U.S. BLM oks unit agreement for Conoco prospect

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Friday it has approved a unit agreement for ConocoPhillips' (COP.N) Mooses Tooth prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

It was the first unit agreement ever issued to consolidate leases in the vast federal land holding on Alaska's North Slope, said Bill Diel, a BLM geologist.

Unit agreements allow developers to combine leases and manage them together, conducting drilling and other operations in the most efficient manner.

The Greater Mooses Tooth unit includes 34 federal leases totaling 147,456 acres, the BLM said. Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC.N) is ConocoPhillips' partner in the leases.

The unit agreement marks a milestone for the BLM in its efforts to encourage oil development from the Indiana-sized petroleum reserve, officials said.

"We view this as the first step toward successful development of nationally important energy resources from this petroleum reserve," BLM Alaska Director Thomas Lonnie said in a prepared statement.

The Greater Mooses Tooth unit is located just west of the ConocoPhillips-operated Alpine oil field located on state land. Proximity to the existing oil field makes it more feasible to develop the new unit, Diel said.

"That infrastructure there allows resource development to move westward, which puts it across the Colville (River) and moves it into BLM land," he said. "This is another step in that process in bringing what resources are discovered to an operator such as ConocoPhillips and to the trans-Alaska pipeline."

ConocoPhillips has plans to drill a well this winter in the new Greater Mooses Tooth Unit, Diel said.

The unit encompasses several leases where oil was discovered in exploration efforts that date back to 2001.

The 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska was established in 1923, initially as a potential source of oil and gas to be used by the nation's military forces. Despite sporadic exploration over the decades, there has never been any commercial production of oil from the reserve, however. The major oil development activity in Alaska has been to the east, on state lands of the North Slope.

But the discovery of the huge Alpine field in the 1990s led to renewed interest in the petroleum reserve and a series of successful BLM lease sales. Alpine is now one of the North Slope's most productive fields and supports satellite developments.

Anadarko is a partner with ConocoPhillips in the Alpine field.

Alpine, along with its two satellite fields, Nanuq and Fiord, produced 134,867 barrels per day in December, according to local media reports.