Rampart applies for Nenana access permit

Click here to read the PDF version of this story.
Print this story | Email it to an associate.

Rampart Energy Co., formerly known as Babcock & Brown Energy Inc., has applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit for the construction of an access road for the gas exploration well that the company plans to drill in Alaska’s Nenana basin.

On Nov. 17 Doyon Ltd., the Native regional corporation for Interior Alaska, announced that Denver-based Babcock & Brown Energy was joining Doyon, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and Usibelli Energy to drill “at least one” vertical, 10,500-foot natural gas exploration well in the Nenana basin in the summer of 2009. A gas field at Nenana, if found, could fuel electric power generation, or supply natural gas for Fairbanks or Southcentral Alaska.

According to Rampart’s permit application the Nenana well, called Nunivak No. 1, will be located about three miles west of the town of Nenana. Nenana lies on the Parks Highway, about 50 highway miles southwest of Fairbanks.

Access to the well site will require construction of a four-mile road that follows an existing cleared and partially graded right of way for the first three miles of its route. The road will require temporary bridges to cross three small rivers to the west of the Nenana River. Access to the road would be by barge across the Nenana River during the summer and by ice road across the river in the winter.

Rampart plans to carry out road construction during the winter, in preparation for drilling in the summer.

—Alan Bailey