Alaska’s Oil Revival Draws Energy Industry Back to the Arctic

When John Kurz left Alaska’s North Slope in 2009, he was staring at a grim future for what had once been the country’s premiere oil field.

Crude production had plummeted to 567,000 barrels per day, barely more than a quarter of the roughly 2 million barrels pumped daily at the field’s peak two decades earlier. The decline stoked concerns that the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, built to carry the state’s oil bounty to the continental US, might stop operating.

The Trans Alaska Pipeline along the Dalton Highway near Stevens Village, Alaska.

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

Engineers even worried that slow-moving crude would congeal inside the pipeline, creating waxy buildup that could turn TAPS into the ...