Phillips Petroleum expects to be reporting a 52% oil and gas production increase in 2000 over last year, according to Tom Morris, Phillips CFO, who spoke last week at the Lehman Brothers CEO Energy Conference. Morris said that he expects the company will follow up with a 17% increase in 2001 production.

He attributes the sharp increase this year to Phillips acquisition of ARCO’s Alaskan properties and strong performance from the company’s Norwegian holdings. With the Alaskan acquisition, Morris said that Phillips is now the largest oil and gas producer in Alaska. The CFO said the company expects a 3% production gain for the year 2002 and 2003. The 17% increase in production in 2001 will be the result of the first full year of production from the Alaska properties, as well as new production from the Alpine field in Alaska and the Hamaca region of Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil belt, and continued output from Phillips’ Norwegian assets.

Phillips quarterly operating income increased from the $271 million during the first quarter to $439 million at the end of the second quarter this year.

Within the last seven months, Phillips has entered into joint ventures with Duke Energy to create Duke Energy Field Services, and Chevron to form Chevron Phillips Chemical Co (see NGI, April 10).

Alex Steis

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