ConocoPhillips, NREL and Iowa State University to Establish Research Alliance to Advance Biofuels Research

Business Wire, March 31, 2008

HOUSTON & GOLDEN, Colo. & AMES, Iowa -- ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), headquartered in Golden, CO, today announced a strategic research alliance with Iowa State University (ISU) to identify promising cellulosic biomass conversion technologies to further diversify the nation's energy sources and help meet growing energy demand. The collaboration will bring three independently established programs together to help identify the most efficient and cost-effective methods for making liquid transportation fuels from plants.

Transportation fuels today primarily come from petroleum, corn grain or food crops. The collaboration between ConocoPhillips, NREL and ISU will develop conversion technologies that will use cellulosic materials such as corn stalks, stems, leaves, other non-food agricultural residues, hardy grasses and fast-growing trees as feedstocks for future transportation fuels. The processes that will be examined in this collaboration include gasification, pyrolysis and fermentation.

"ConocoPhillips is committed to the development of technologies that will convert sustainable non-food feedstocks into transportation fuels that will be critical to the nation's energy security," said Stephen Brand, ConocoPhillips senior vice president, Technology. "We are hopeful that this collaboration will expand the knowledge base and speed the development of these environmental technologies."

"Research cooperation among government, industry and academia is needed to efficiently address the many questions about how to find the best ways to convert biomass to liquid transportation fuels," said Tom Foust, technology manager for NREL's National Bioenergy Center.

"The thermochemical and biochemical conversion of cellulosic biomass into liquid fuels has great promise to be a clean and renewable source of energy that doesn't compete with our food supply," said Robert C. Brown, Iowa Farm Bureau director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State. "This research collaboration brings together the complementary strengths of a major energy company, a national energy laboratory and a land-grant university to advance these technologies and move them closer to the marketplace."

The collaboration could lead to projects that could provide publicly available, peer-reviewed papers and models. Each party is providing its own time and resources and the collaboration is expected to produce an initial report by January 2009.

About ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips is an international, integrated energy company with interests around the world. For more information, visit www.conocophillips.com.

About NREL

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle. For more information, visit NREL online at www.nrel.gov.

About Iowa State University

Iowa State University is a land-grant university established in Ames 150 years ago. The university enrolled 26,160 students in fall 2007 and attracted $272 million in grants, contracts and cooperative research agreements in fiscal year 2007. For more information, visit www.iastate.edu.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE "SAFE HARBOR" PROVISIONS OF THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that contain projections about our revenues, income, earnings and other financial items, our plans and objectives for the future, future economic performance, or other projections or estimates about our assumptions relating to these types of statements. These statements usually relate to future events and anticipated revenues, earnings, business strategies, competitive position or other aspects of our operations or operating results. In many cases you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "continue," "could," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should," "will," "expect," "objective," "projection," "forecast," "goal," "guidance," "outlook," "effort," "target" and other similar words. However, the absence of these words does not mean that the statements are not forward-looking. The forward-looking statements are based on management's expectations, estimates and projections about ConocoPhillips and the petroleum industry in general on the date this statement was released. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Further, certain forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecast in such forward-looking statements. Economic, business, competitive and regulatory factors that may affect ConocoPhillips' business are generally as set forth in ConocoPhillips' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Unless legally required, ConocoPhillips undertakes no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.