1) Fracking has been employed on the Slope for nearly 30 years, and hundreds (likely thousands) of frack jobs have been performed. Only difference here is the rock being fracked (shale vs. conventional sandstone) and until recently the fracks were in vertical wells, not horizontal.

2) Drillers don't "create cracks within shale and tap them with horizontal wells." They drill a horizontal well, then a frack crew comes and pumps gel and sand at high rate to create a network of fractures in the reservoir, increasing surface area and productivity.

3) Conoco's recently-announced discovery (Willow) was 300 million barrels, not 300,000. Most individual wells on the Slope recover more than 300,000 barrels, so a discovery of that size would be far from newsworthy. 300,000 is the estimated production rate (in barrels/day) of Conoco's Pikka, GMT, and Willow estimates combined.