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Big picture the goal with new NPR-A plan Some areas already deferred for 10 years as more information collected; Native, environmental, industry interests all at play Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
There have been plans for the northeast and northwest areas of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, but the Bureau of Land Management is now preparing a plan for the entire area.
“We’re trying to take the whole thing and do it again, looking at it as a whole, rather than just piecemealing the planning decisions,” Bud Cribley, BLM’s new Alaska state director, told Petroleum News in a Feb. 2 interview.
The goal, he said, is “to achieve some kind of a big picture of how the future development of that entire area could take place, at least within the next 20 years.”
Decisions from previous plans include that Teshekpuk Lake will not be leased and deferral of leasing on the shorelines and adjacent country so that additional information on wildlife species can be gathered. One issue there is concerns such as subsistence hunting, Cribley said.
Companies have been able to lease in NPR-A, but not develop, and Cribley said one of his questions to staff working o the plan is, “do we need to do things differently?”
Some basic issues which have to be overcome, such as access, are not under BLM’s control, he said.
That is the difficulty ConocoPhillips is having getting its CD-5 project permitted, because the Corps of Engineers denied a permit for a bridge across the Nigliq Channel and a road from the bridge to existing Alpine facilities.
“BLM is not directly involved with CD-5,” was not a cooperating agency on the project, because the scope of the project in NPR-A was small, Cribley said.
But the BLM’s director has met with counterparts at the Corps of Engineers, and the secretary of the Interior has met with his counterpart in Washington, Cribley said. If circumstances change, BLM “is ready to engage in any way that we can to help out with that permitting process.”
And if another opportunity presented itself to participate, if for example ConocoPhillips submitted a new application, then BLM would probably “take advantage of that and be a cooperating agency with any NEPA document in the future,” he said.
Everyone involved In the plan BLM is currently writing, covering the entire NPR-A, it made an effort to get everyone involved. Agencies cooperating with BLM are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the North Slope Borough and the State of Alaska.
By having all those agencies involved, “we can have discussions with them looking at the impact, looking at the alternatives and making sure that we’re … addressing every issue that we can anticipate so that we can try to do the best we can to preclude some of those problems down the road.”
Cribley said BLM’s goal is to have a decision “that creates a comfort level on the part of the industry that there are assurances that they will be able, if they were to go in and invest into and lease those lands, that they would have the ability to develop those resources while still protecting … the world-class resource values that are within the boundaries.”
Ted Murphy, BLM’s Alaska deputy state director for the Division of Resources, said lease sale schedules have in the past been held about every other year, and the agency will move toward that again.
“Whether it’s every other year or whether it’s on a recurring basis that seems to be the mantra from industry: As long as you’re consistently offering whatever over whatever period it is, consistent, they can work with that.”
Murphy said it would probably take six to nine months after a record of decision was issued before a lease sale was held, so with a record of decision around the end of 2012, the next lease sale would be in 2013.
He said BLM would like industry to share with the agency where they’d like to lease.
“I think that’s a critical aspect of developing the National Petroleum Reserve, is getting that fix on what’s of interest and when is it of interest to the industry,” Murphy said.
Historically large blocks were offered because it’s been tough to get a handle on what’s of interest to industry, he said.
The state offers all of the acreage in specified areas every year, but Murphy said that in his view, “the state doesn’t have as regulated a NEPA process as we do.”
Focus on opportunities Murphy said because this generation of the integrated activity plan for NPR-A covers the entire area, there will be consistency in the stipulations, “consistency in the required operating procedures and it will afford those assurance that industry and the environmentalists, conservation groups, often ask for and so I think will pave the way for the future of the petroleum reserve.”
It is a big job, he said, and there are tight timeframes, but the federal agencies, the North Slope Borough and the state, are all seasoned.
“Everybody’s been through at least one rodeo; we’ll get to the end,” Murphy said.
“And that’s one of the reasons why … in this document that we won’t go out with a preferred alternative in the draft. …
“We don’t want to steer it too much. We can adjust that when we get to the end, after we get all the feedback on our range of alternatives and then come up with what is the most reasonable approach to the National Petroleum Reserve.”
Cribley noted that the two recent plans create a foundation for the work that’s being done now, which looks “at it on a more integrated basis,” which should allow the agency to “create a better vision of the future, what the future of that land is, and where we’re going to go with the development of it.”
Pipeline issues A separate issue, but one BLM can’t ignore, Cribley said, is the proposed natural gas pipeline from the North Slope.
“If it happens we will be integrally involved with that because it will invariably cross public lands,” and so BLM will be involved with any environmental document that’s developed and with the actual permitting.
He said BLM has “staff on board that is continuing to coordinate with the different proposals within the state and making sure that if they do move them forward that we’re fully engaged with that.”
He said preliminary work includes looking at feasibility and some of the challenges that would have to be overcome. There are multiple projects on the table, “but we want to be prepared and be in the queue to step up and do our part when that does happen. It’s one of those things that’s based on economics. It could turn overnight on you — all of a sudden you’ve got a new huge workload.”
So even though none of the projects is currently moving forward and “nothing is going on, you can’t let your guard down: You have to be engaged and paying attention.”
See part 1 of this story in the Feb. 20 issue.
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