The final Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has issued a final Environmental Impact Statement for Hilcorp Alaska's planned Liberty oil field development offshore in the Beaufort Sea. The agency has confirmed a preferred alternative accepting Hilcorp's proposal to develop the field from a small gravel island about five miles offshore and the laying of a buried subsea pipe-in-pipe pipeline to carry crude oil to shore. The pipeline would connect with the existing Badami pipeline for transporting the Liberty oil to the trans-Alaska pipeline.
BOEM says that it anticipates the EIS being published in the Federal Register on Aug. 31, with a record of decision for the document being issued 30 days or more later.
Hilcorp has previously said that it hopes to start building the gravel island in late 2019, with the laying of the field's subsea pipeline taking place in the following winter and first oil from the field perhaps flowing in 2022. The field is thought to hold around 100 million barrels of recoverable oil.
- ALAN BAILEY
See story in Sept. 2 issue, available online Friday, Aug. 31 at www.PetroleumNews.com
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