The Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice (BE-OI) consortium and its international partners unite a globally unique concentration of scientific expertise and infrastructure for ice-core investigations. It delivers the technical, scientific and financial basis for a comprehensive plan to retrieve an ice core up to 1.5 million years old. The consortium takes care of the pre-site surveys for site selection around Dome C and Dome Fuji, both potentially appropriate regions in East Antarctica. Other science consortia will investigate other regions under the umbrella of the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS). Here, we will provide an overview of the current project’s achievments and near future plans. In addition, we provide a detailed outlook into the BE-OI Drilling Phase operation envisaged for the next years up to 2025, the second stage of the project.