Not necessarily easier.  In Alaska they have a lot of the infrastructure in place - they're just harvesting the resource at this point.  It costs less than $10 per barrel to extract.  And it's cold, but they aren't drilling in water a half mile deep.  They don't have to worry about terrorists, or their people being kidnapped and ransomed, or government officials (other than our legislature) constantly asking for bribes.  Or their operations being nationalized.  And we have very low taxes compared to the ret of the world.

yeah, there are a lot of places a whole lot worse than Alaska for oil companies.